There aren’t many celebrations one can justifiably stay seated for, but the 100th birthday of Charles Eames is surely deserving of a good sit down. Chances are if you’ve sat on a curved plywood chair in the last fifty years, you can thank Mr. Eames for the fact that it was curved, and therefore comfortable.
Such a seemingly simple concept as moulded plywood was in fact born from the Eames’ back room of their LA suburban home in 1941. Together with his wife Ray, Charles created a homemade moulding machine into which they fed wood and glue he’d taken home from his job as a set architect for MGM movies. This enabled them to mould products that could easily be mass-produced.
The first product to reach the production line was a leg splint, somewhat unlikely for one of the twentieth century’s greatest product designers, but timely to say the least. In 1943 the US Navy placed an order for 5000 leg splints, enabling the Eames to move out of their apartment and into ritzier territory on Santa Monica Boulevard.
By 1946, leg splints had given way to plywood chair designs, something so ubiquitous it’s hard to believe there was a time before which they existed. Sleek, moulded wood was both visionary and ingenious not to mention comfortable. Mass-production was the next step after the couple had successfully developed their prototype, and the first 5000 were made in the Eames’ workshop just to ensure everything was in order.
1948 witnessed a leap forward in notoriety when, together with Eero Saarinen, Charles developed La Chaise, a simple, white fibreglass chaise longue, which won the MoMa’s Low Cost Furniture competition in New York. Perhaps Eames’ most recognisable design would come in 1956 with the Lounge Chair. Made from leather and their favourite plywood, it fast became a symbol of corporate success in the 60’s and 70’s.
Despite continued product innovation with a variety of different materials right up to his death in 1978, Charles Eames always favoured his initial plywood designs. It’s appropriate then that to celebrate his 100th birthday, Vitra have put The Plywood Elephant into limited edition production, pehrpas his most unrequited but celebrated designs. Developed in 1945, the complex fabrication methods required meant that only two prototypes were made, of which only one remains in existence today.
1000 of each version, in either natural wood or red-stained maple, are available for £1060 and will be exhibited, alongside a collection of Eames’ work at Liberty from 18th to 31st May.
Click here to see a gallery of Charles Eames' most celebrated work.
INFORMATION
Exhibition dates: 18th-31st May 2007
- Website
- http://www.liberty.co.uk
http://www.vitra.com - Telephone
- +44 (0)20 7734 1234
- Address
- Liberty Regent Street London W1B 5AH
