History of Design: Charles and Ray Eames Screening

Ray made paintings out of everything she saw around her.
They were introducing people to look at the world differently. Put joy back in life.
Gave shape to 20^th century America.
Four decades, 901 Washington Boulevard, Venice Beach, California was one of the most creative addresses on Earth.
Modern design was born from the marriage of art and industry.
Eames office was born from the marriage of Ray, a painter who rarely painted, and Charles, an architectural school dropout who never got his license.
It all began with a chair; Time magazine called it the greatest design of the 20^th century, but it didn’t start out that way. It began as a failure.
The chair that Eames and Saarinen designed for a competition, which won, couldn’t really be manufactured because no existing machine could exactly mold the plywood into the shape of the chair.
After many attempts, Eero gave up, but Charles continued with a new partner, Ray.
Charles was already married to Catherine when he began writing love letters to Ray.
Charles wanted a world where life and work were blended together.
The U.S Military needed better splints. The splints were metallic and the vibration of the wounded being carried would make the wound worse. Would’ve been better off grabbing a stick off the ground and using that instead.
Charles and Ray decided to try and design a new splint out of plywood.
They made over 150 thousand splints.
With the war coming to an end, Charles and Ray thought about applying the plywood splint method to the chair.
They studied the shape and posture of many different people.
Plywood furniture was good to go in 1946.
They wanted to make the best for the most for the least.
Would become one of the greatest success stories during the post-war era.
Eames furniture became like Victoria furniture, because like Victoria represents an attitude, Eames furniture embodied a certain approach to life and to thinking.
By the early 1950’s, Charles had grown an outsized reputation as an icon of modernism, fighting to inject an ethical dimension into American capitalism.
Charles reputation had grown larger than life in the outside world but within the Eames office, there was always the lingering question of credit. Some people felt that they were never recognized as much as they should’ve been.
He wasn’t the only designer involved.
Charles and Ray were often mistaken as brothers, but they were married and they were partners.
Charles depended on Ray, as an artist, to work with color in their work because she had an eye for it.
They were cultural icons.
Charles and Eero designed what was called the Bridge House, but it was never built with the war because they were unable to get the needed materials.
Charles and Ray redesigned the Bridge House and began construction.
Herman Miller wanted him to make more and more chairs but Charles didn’t want to think of himself or have others think of him as just a chair designer.
He knew where his center was. Knowing where his center was, meant working for powerful clients without compromising his ideals. And making a film to represent the United States in communist Russia in 1959 would put that philosophy to the test.
The Moscow show made Charles and Ray more than furniture designers. It made them communicators.
IBM turned to Charles and Ray to solve the PR problem. The two of them set out to humanize the computer.
As Charles and Rays reputation as visual communicators grew, so did their list of corporate clients.
Powers of ten the most known Eames film.
Charles became more and more engaged with Math and Science as time went on.
Franklin and Jefferson show at the Met was the first time Eames had been criticized and it hit Charles hard. The show was huge and tiring, trying to look at everything.
Ray found her voice as one of the most influential women of design.