Charles Eames

Charles Ormond Eames Jr. (1907–1978) famously said that his objective was to “Bring the most of the best to the greatest number of people for the least.” (Gloria Koenig, Charles and Ray Eames: Pioneers of Mid-Century Modernism. (Koln, London, Los Angeles, Paris, Tokyo: Taschen, 2015), 2.) Pioneers of midcentury modern design, Charles and his wife, Ray Eames, were known for their material experimentation across a slew of media, including furniture, exhibition design, interior design, film, fine art, toys, and graphic design. The pair met at Cranbrook in 1940 and in 1941 moved to Los Angeles. Many of their furniture designs, produced by the Herman Miller Furniture Company beginning in the 1940s, are still in production today.

Charles Eames first attracted national acclaim as furniture designer by winning MoMA’s 1940 design competition titled, “Organic Design in Home Furnishings.” Eames worked with close friend and fellow Cranbrook alum, Eero Saarinen to produce the now infamous Organic Chair. The Organic Chair was constructed utilizing newly developed molded plywood that as a material would have felt more industrial than natural. Using the term “organic” was a clever strategy to reference the sinuous forms that epitomize midcentury objects as reflections of natural motifs. The exhibition attracted national attention but mass production of the Organic Chair never occurred due to the start of World War II.  

In 1946 MoMA opened another midcentury modern exhibition titled New Furniture Designs by Charles Eames. The exhibition was a commercial breakthrough for Ray and Charles. Their design tapped into the collective optimism of the postwar era and argued that better life could be cultivated through good design. After the exhibition, the Herman Miller Furniture Company began mass producing several of their designs, including the Lounge Chair Wood (LCW) and Lounge Chair Metal (LCM). The LCM chair would become a staple of midcentury modernism and eventually the form would be used on the Winterthur campus.