Charles & Ray Eames: Plywood

It was at Cranbrook that Charles Eames finally got his diploma in architecture. He later headed the academy’s Industrial Design Department. He also worked in Eliel Saarinen’s architecture office and designed furniture for two of Saarinen’s buildings — Kleinhans Music Hall in Buffalo, N.Y., and Crow Island School in Winnetka, Ill. These early works were influenced by Alvar Aalto, who had visited and lectured at the Cranbrook Academy.

Then, in 1940, the Museum of Modern Art, in New York, announced an Organic Design in Home Furnishings competition. The contest was curated by Eliot Noyes, a young architect and student of Mies van der Rohe and the first head of the museum’s new Industrial Design Department. The winners not only would have their work shown at the museum in a major exhibition in 1941 but would be awarded contracts for the manufacture of their creations and the promise of distribution by major department stores. Sales were to begin on the first day of the show. The exhibition featured works by Klaus Grabe, a Bauhaus graduate then based in Mexico, and graphic designer Alexey Brodovitch. Charles Eames and architect Eero Saarinen, son of Eliel, took part as a team.

The winning entries were announced in September 1941, and Saarinen and Eames took top honors in two of the six furniture categories (living room and chair design). One reason for their success was the

Eames and Saarinen were the first to use the new technology for furniture.

The winning entries were announced in September 1941, and Saarinen and Eames took top honors in two of the six furniture categories (living room and chair design).

One reason for their success was the use of a cutting-edge technology that made it possible to mold plywood differently than ever before. Eames and Saarinen were the first to use the new technology for furniture.

The terms of the contest called for the winning objects to go into mass production, and the Eames-Saarinen chairs were set to be made by Haskelite and Heywood-Wakefield. But the technology for the chairs turned out to be too unrealistic, and the plan was abandoned, although prototypes were made. On the other hand, Eames and Saarinen’s winning cabinets and stands were produced by the Red Lyon company in 1941—1942. Manufacture stopped, however, when, with the onset of war, plywood could no longer be obtained.

The show at the Museum of Modern Art, it should be noted, was the first collaboration between Charles Eames and his future wife and lifelong design partner, Ray Kaiser. Ray designed the Organic Design in Home Furnishings show.

Ray Kaiser, a native of Sacramento, Calif., had moved to New York in 1933 to study painting with abstract expressionist Hans Hofmann. Her work was included in a pioneering show of abstract expressionist art in 1937. Ray matriculated at Cranbrook in 1940.

Among other things, the move to California was motivated by conditions brought on by the Second World War. While the United States had not yet entered the war, the American economy was already affected. With plywood in heavy demand in many spheres of war-related production, costs quickly rose, halting all attempts to mass produce Eames and Saarinen’s designs. At the same time, Eames knew that he and his expertise on the molding of plywood in complex curved forms could lead to orders from defense-related firms, many of which were then in California.

Eames’ expectations were not impracticable. He won several contracts from the US Navy, which led to the production in 1943 of a full-size fuselage for a hydroplane and prototypes of an airplane pilot seat, stretchers for carrying the wounded and arm and leg splints, all of molded plywood. The splints were the only idea that were mass-produced.

plywood

use of a cutting-edge technology that made it possible to mold plywood differently than ever before.

ray

The next year Charles Eames divorced his first wife and married Ray. They resettled in
Los Angeles.

splints

plywood

use of a cutting-edge technology that made it possible to mold plywood differently than ever before.

ray

The next year Charles Eames divorced his first wife and married Ray. They resettled in Los Angeles.

splints

The next year Charles Eames divorced his first wife and married Ray. They resettled in
Los Angeles.