Charles & Ray Eames: Splints

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.

Another and perhaps more important consequence of the move to Los Angeles was the exposure of Ray and Charles Eames to the busy world of modern architecture and architectural thinking in Los Angeles. Since the 1920s, led by Austrian immigrants Rudolph M. Schindler and Richard Neutra, Los Angeles was a center of modern trends in architecture. Moreover, Arts & Architecture, then the most important US publication of its type, was based in Los Angeles. Last but not least, Herbert Matter, a prominent avant-garde photographer and graphic designer, also lived in Los Angeles then. His wife, Mercedes Matter, was a good friend of Ray Eames and had studied with her under Hans Hofmann.

At first, the Eameses rented an apartment in a house designed and built by Neutra, who was both the architect and their landlord. Gregory Ain, an architect and student of Neutra, also worked at their office. The Eameses became friends with Herbert Matter, and he took many photographs of their work. In some of them, objects made by the Eameses are seen together with sculptures made by Herbert Matter’s friend, Alexander Calder. One of Calder’s sculptures stood in the Eames home. John Entenza, the editor-in-chief of Arts & Architecture, also become a friend of the Eameses. Ray Eames produced several covers for his magazine.