Charles and Ray

Charles and Ray 

The essence of the company begins with the marriage of Ray Cassel. Ray Cassel was a talented painter and Charles Eames who was a successful architect, who didn't continue school and never got his license.

These were Charles words "Eventually everything connected"

• Furniture
• Toys
• Photography
• Films
• Exhibition
• Architecture

These are connected to one word... CREATIVITY

The Eames chair had a long process. At the beginning, it wasn't easy to create this chair.
It first started when Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen entered a competition at the museum of modern art in 1940.

Their goal was to create something innovative, Low cost and mass produce chair. This had to be mold with the body to create the shape because they didn't want to make upholstery in  this chair because it was not something original and high cost to produce it and to buy it.

Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen the mission was to mold the plywood to one direction that the back becomes a seat. But they Notice that it was uncomfortable and as a look it wasn't created because of the creaks that there was from the back of the seat so they covered it with upholstery.  They won the competition but the problem was that this chair couldn't be mass produced. There wasn't a machine that could bring the chair into that shape.

After many experiments,  Eero Saarinen didn't want to work on the chairs project anymore. But Charles he didn't give up. And that was the time when he met Ray Cassel. She helped him with the chair project.

First Design that Charles and Ray created was the splints. They experimented with the technique of wood molding. This   leads to developed a plywood splints. This technique they first mold it and then heat and press. This invention was really useful for the world war 2.

By this technique, they applied it to the chair. Charles has leaned from his failures so he decided that the main focus wasn't the look but the form. Although the idea of using plywood they had to eliminate because the plywood material wasn't strong enough to stand the pressure where the chair seat and the back connect. So they eliminated the first idea of a single shell to a molded plywood  separate board for the seat and the back.

By this technique, it removed the unneeded wood that was going to be fixed between the seat and the back.  The advantage of this it decreases the weight and visual profile of the chair and provides a new furniture design. 

The clients where varies so they had to test different shape, a different posture of different people for average and extreme. This was the first few process of the chair. The process helps to learn by doing.

Charles said, "In the design any structure is often the connection that provides the key to the solution."

This was something new for the new society of the UK.

The chair is still famous in today's design world and it will still carry on a new generation.

We are surrounded by Eames chair because their bar chairs, Office chairs, School chairs and dining chairs.

Reference.

Eames office. Charles and Ray Eames are among the most important American designers of the 20th century.. [online] Available at: < http://www.eamesoffice.com/eames-office/charles-and-ray/> [N.D].

Eames The architect and the painter.2012. [Film] Film of Jason coho and bill jersey. (Narrated by James Franco.) Location made  Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, Michigan, USA