Eames

20th Century Modern in
America

Eero Saarinen &
Charles and Ray Eames

jeudi, 8 décembre 2011

20th Century Modern:
1945-1990

Modern design is a story of inﬂuences and
innovation.
While the International Style was dominating the
world of architecture and interiors, other designers
and architects were exploring new ways of
expression in building and furniture.
Designers from Scandinavia, Italy and America
produced a wealth of furniture, decorative crafts and
textiles after World War II.


Influences & Icons
European designers & architects
inﬂuenced design in America and the
world throughout the century, especially
those associated with the German
Bauhaus: Mies van der Rohe,
Marcel Breuer and Walter Gropius.
The style they championed
became known as the
International Style, and
incorporated the use of steel,
glass, chromed metal and
geometric forms.

American Style
In reaction to this highly industrialized
aesthetic, some designer of the post-
war eras advocated a return to the
hand-crafts and the use of natural
materials. Sam Maloff, Wendell Castle
and others relied on
natural forms and
more organic
materials for their
designs.


American Style

Other designers and architects continued to work
and experiment with modern materials, and to
design for machine production.
One of the centers for both education and design
was Cranbrook Academy outside Detroit, Michigan.
The Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen was appointed
to the directorship in 1922, and Cranbrook produced
some of the most innovative designers of the
century.


Eero Saarinen
1910-1961

Eero Saarinen was born in Finland,
the son of Eliel Saarinen. The family
moved to the US in 1922 and Eliel
became head of Cranbrook Academy,
where Eero grew up. Eero’s mother
was also a talented textile designer.


Eero Saarinen
1910-1961
He studied architecture at Yale from 1930 to 1934.
Saarinen’s design aesthetic is based on the concept
of relationship: relating an object to its next-largest
context, a chair to a room, a building to the street, a
vase to the table it sits on (which he learned from his
father).
His furniture is very sculptural, and he designed
many pieces in molded plastic. Some early pieces
were executed in molded plywood, and designed in
collaboration with fellow students at Cranbrook.


Saarinen
The Womb chair was designed as a the
contemporary answer to the traditional wing chair,
to provide a sense of
comfort and being
cradled and held.


Saarinen
Saarinen became well-known for a
line of pedestal furniture in molded
plastic and enameled steel. He was
attempting to ﬁnd a solution to the
forest of legs usually associated with
chairs and tables.
The chair is called the
Tulip Chair, and is made
from molded plastic supported
by a steel pedestal base.


Saarinen
Saarinen also taught at Cranbrook with his
father Eliel, and they established an
architectural partnership.
Architectural projects include the Gateway
Arch, St. Louis, and Dulles International
Airport outside
Washington, D.C, in
addition to several
buildings at Cranbrook
in collaboration with
his father.


Saarinen

The terminal for TWA at JFK airport in New York is
one of Saarinen’s most distinctive designs.
Constructed from concrete, steel and glass, both
exterior and interior
are very sculptural.


Saarinen
The interior of the terminal incorporates organic,
ﬂowing forms.
The roof is
poured in place.


Charles & Ray Eames …..

Charles & Ray Eames contributed in many ways to
20th century architecture, furniture design, industrial
design and photography. The couple met at
Cranbrook Academy of Art, in the 1930s, where they
collaborated with Eero Saarinen on designs for
furniture.

Charles Eames
1907-1978
Charles Eames trained as an
architect at Washington
University in St. Louis and was
offered a fellowship to
Cranbrook Academy by Eliel
Saarinen in 1936.
Ray studied painting in New
York with Hans Hofmann before
moving to Cranbrook at about
the same time.


Design philosophy …..

Along with other designers and architects after the
war, the Eameses worked to encourage mass-
production, which would spread high quality,
affordable modern design across the country, and to
integrate modern materials and construction
methods with good craftsmanship.
Although they built few houses, their ideas were
spread through their furnishings, toys, ﬁlms and
slide shows.


Design challenges …..
The Eameses were driven to ﬁnd answers to these
questions:

How do we produce affordable, high-quality
furniture?
How do we build economical living and working
spaces?
How do we help people see beauty in the everyday?
How do we promote cross-cultural understanding?
How can we make fundamental scientiﬁc principles
understandable to lay people?

Furniture …..
The Eameses used four
basic materials for chairs:
molded plywood
ﬁberglass-reinforced
plastic bent & welded
wire mesh cast aluminum
Us of modern materials that were easy to mass-
produce allowed for an affordable product.


The Eames’ & Saarinen
Charles & Ray Eames and Eero
Saarinen collaborated on several
experimental designs for
competitions that were also put
into production. The team
competed in the MOMA Organic
Furniture Competition in
1940-1941, and won ﬁrst place in
two categories. They also placed
2nd in the MOMA Low-Cost
Furniture Competition in 1949
with the ﬁberglass shell chair.


Move to California ...
The Eameses moved to
California in 1941 where
they continued
experimenting with
molded plywood. They
were commissioned by
the US Navy to design
splints and stretchers
during World War II, and
their ﬁrst molded plywood
chair was produced by
Evans Products in 1946.


Bent Laminated Plywood

Good design using prefabricated standardized parts
at low cost ….


Molded plywood ….

This screen of bent laminated
wood is a classic example of
the Eameses’ experimental
ability.
It is reminiscent of Alvar
Aalto’s screen, but made from
a single piece of plywood
rather than wood strips.


Molded fiberglass
‘Shock mounted’ steel wire
An early challenge for the Eameses’ was ﬁnding a
way to join two dissimilar materials in a practical
way. The developed a method for joining ﬁberglass
and steel that they called ‘shock mounts’.


Molded reinforced plastic …..

Molded ﬁberglass shell chairs
padded and upholstered with
leather or vinyl, on chromed
steel legs. Inspired by the
original competition chairs,
these were produced by
Herman Miller.


Wire and plastic …..
The steel wire base table was designed for Herman
Miller. The wire framed chair was a later version of
the ﬁberglass shell chair


The Eames Lounge
Possibly the most famous of the Eames’ furniture
designs, this lounge and ottoman are still in
production. The original speciﬁed bent and
laminated Rosewood with leather upholstery. In
response to concerns
about endangered
wood species, new
chairs are made from
walnut.


Modular storage ...
Using plywood,
laminate, steel and
masonite, the
Eameses designed
modular storage
that provided
ﬂexibility, function
and beauty.


From drawing to product …...

The Hang-it-all echoes an earlier painting by Ray
Eames.


What is a house?
Charles Eames
graphically
represented the idea
of ‘house’ to
illustrate an article
about residential
design published in
Arts & Architecture
in 1944.


Eames House
The house designed by
Charles Eames in Paciﬁc
Palisades, California in 1949
expresses the aesthetic and
functional ideas that ﬂow
throughout all of the
Eameses’ work: innovative
use of materials, organic
form, human scale and
economical use of space.


Textiles ...
This design by Ray
Eames for a textile,
called ‘Crosspatch’,
was inspired by a trip
to India.
The Eameses
sought to promote
cross-cultural understanding
through ﬁlms, lectures and design.


House of Cards … affecting
the larger community.
The House of Cards
pack was designed
to stimulate
innovative thinking.
Available to anyone,
working with the
cards was intended
to improve creativity
in a playful way.


Promotional Postcard
….communication of ideas.
The original drawing for the postcard evolved into
the example at the right:


Public spaces …….
Designing for public spaces
was an important element in
the Eameses’ goal to
educate the public in good
design. Tandem chairs like
these were designed for
Dulles International airport,
among others.


Powers of Ten


Powers of Ten
Electricity deals with measurements that can vary
from very, very large to very, very small

We simplify numbers using powers of ten to
describe them


Powers of Ten
The integer powers of ten are:


Eames in India
The Government of India asked for recommendations on a
programme of training in design that would serve as an aid to the
small industries; and that would resist the present rapid
deterioration in design and quality of consumer goods.
Charles Eames, American industrial designer and his wife and
colleague Ray Eames, visited India for three months at the
invitation of the Government, with the sponsorship of the Ford
Foundation, to explore the problems of design and to make
recommendations for a training programme. The Eameses toured
throughout India, making a careful study of the many centres of
design, handicrafts and general manufacture.
They talked with many persons, official and non-official, in the
field of small and large industry, in design and architecture, and in
education.


Eames in India
You have the right to work but for the work's sake only;
You have no right to the fruits of work.
Desire for the fruits of work must never be your motive in
working.
Never give way to laziness, either.
Perform every action with your heart ﬁxed on the Supreme Lord.
Renounce attachment to the fruits.
Be even-tempered in success and failures, for it is this evenness
of temper which is meant by Yoga.
Work done with anxiety about results is far inferior to work done
without such anxiety, in the calm of self-surrender.
Seek refuge in the knowledge of Brahman.
They who work selﬁshly for results are miserable.

Bhagavad Gita


Functionalism vs. Aesthetics

“What … works is better than what looks good. The
looks good can change, but what works, works.”
Ray Eames

It is clear from their work that although functional
issues may dominate, what ‘works’ is also often
beautiful.


A legacy ……..

“The Eameses' wholehearted belief that design
could improve people's lives remains their greatest
legacy. Even more remarkable is how they achieved
their seriousness of purpose with elegance, wit, and
beauty.”

Eames Furniture Exhibition Catalog


Eames

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