Evening at CSH #9

Entenza and his magazine’s most ambitious undertaking was the Case Study Houses project. With the war almost over, Entenza understood that a plethora of young war veterans would be in the market for new homes after returning. The idea of the Case Study Houses was to demonstrate the advantages in cost and comfort of houses built in new ways. The magazine bought several building plots in Los Angeles and commissioned local modernist architects to design and build model homes on them. Each house was featured in the magazine twice — as a project and then as a fully ready home. After the houses were built, they were opened to visitors and eventually sold. While the project did not raise much money for the magazine, it provided much to write about. The magazine bought several building plots in Los Angeles and commissioned local modernist architects to design and build model homes on them.

Charles Eames took part in the CSH project, building two almost adjacent houses. He designed the first, known as CSH#8, alone and the second, CSH#9, with Eero Saarinen. Unlike the other homes in the project, these houses were not meant to be sold. The Eameses moved into No. 8, and John Entenza into No. 9, though he did not remain long. The Eameses lived in No. 8 for the rest of their lives. While Charles and Ray did not have children of their own, Lucia Eames, Charles’ daughter from his first marriage, would come to live with them. The home now is occupied by Lucia’s children, the grandchildren of Charles Eames.

The house, whose quality is widely recognized, is also notable for its Eames-designed and built furnishings.

But, as mentioned, the Eameses’ first years in Los Angeles were lived in the apartment of a Neutra house. They used the livingroom there as a workshop to shape plywood, using

They called the machine, onomatopoetically, Kazam! With it, they fashioned prototypes of furniture, splints and radio consoles and, further exploring the possibilities of the new material, for abstract sculptures. One such piece hung over the fireplace in the home of Eliot Noyes, with whom the Eamseses maintained a friendship long after the Museum of Modern Art competition that had brought them together in 1940—1941.

Meanwhile, Noyes continued as head of the museum’s Department of Industrial Design, with MOMA regularly hosting design exhibitions and the Eameses taking part. New work by Charles and Ray Eames was featured in MOMA’s “Design for Use” exhibition in 1944. In 1946 MOMA put on an exhibition titled “New Furniture Designed by Charles Eames,” which makes clear that his name was already well-known. In September 1946, in the wake of the MOMA show, Arts & Architecture published a long article about the Eameses, which also included collages by Herbert Matter. In 1946, too, Ray Eames won first prize in MOMA’s “Competition for Printed Fabrics,” and in 1948 the Eameses were prizewinners in MOMA’s “International Competition for Low-Cost Furniture Design.”

Several other major articles about the Eameses appeared in Architectural Forum and Life magazines in 1950. Architectural Forum featured their home, and Life carried a photo story by renowned photographer Peter Stackpole featuring the Eameses, the interiors of their home and the workshop they were renting in Venice, Calif. In the period 1950—1955, MOMA curator Edgar Kaufmann Jr. organized a series of annual “Good Design” exhibition-competitions. This was a joint project of MOMA and the Chicago Merchandise Mart. Selected objects were first shown in Chicago, then pared down by a jury, with the short-listed items sent on for display in Manhattan at MOMA. Charles and Ray Eames acted as consultants on the project and themselves laid out the first of the “Good Design” shows.

case study houses

kazam!

a molding machine powered by a bicycle pump.