Charles Eames Biography
Charles Eames was born in Saint Louis in 1907, Eames began his career as a designer and planner at the age of 14 within the Laclede Steel Company. His activity then proceeds with academic studies in Architecture at Washington University, from which he was however expelled because he was considered to have excessively modern views.
The fact did not affect his career: already in 1930 Eames opened his architecture and design studio in Los Angeles, which also earned him a scholarship at the Cranbrook Academy of Art where he would later become head of the Design Department. It was at this institute that he began working together with the architect Eero Saarinen on the project that earned him his first recognition: the victory, in 1941, of a competition on Organic Design in home furnishings organized by MoMA.
The project in question, which experiments with a new wood bending technique, brings him further luck: that of meeting the painter Ray Kaiser who will become his wife and partner at the famous Eames studio. Modern, experimental, transversal: these are certainly some of the fundamental characteristics of Charles Eames' style, which saw his career explode during the 1950s. An enthusiastic climate, in which the new society, young and rich, is continuously seeking well-being in every aspect of daily life. The Eames studio is perfectly in line with what the American society of the time desired: technical experimentation is the basis, in fact, of many of Charles Eames' projects. This led him to patent, for example, new methods for bending wood, one of the most used materials in his works. In addition to bent wood, the raw materials on which Charles Eames' projects are based are always new and innovative elements, such as fiberglass or metal rod meshes.
Alongside this great technical experimentation, a certain artistic note always stands out in the projects of the Eames studio: this is certainly the imprint of his wife Ray, a painter working in the field of contemporary art. In the field of interior design, the Eames Storage Unit Shelf is also very well known: designed in 1949 for Vitra, it is a shelving system available in different sizes and different color combinations, with references to the industrial world, but which retains a linked to the style of the 1940s and 1950s. But his most famous designs probably remain two seats: the Lounge Chair Wood, also known by the acronym LCW, and the Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman.
