Charles Eames
One half of the Eames duo.
Together with Ray Eames, Charles Eames designed furniture in moulded plywood and fibreglass, as well as films and exhibitions.
Charles Eames was born in 1907 in St. Louis, Missouri. He studied architecture at Washington University but left after two years, reportedly partly because he admired Frank Lloyd Wright more than the school approved of. He set up his own architectural practice and married for the first time in 1929. In 1938 he received a fellowship to the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan.
At Cranbrook he worked with Eero Saarinen, and in 1940 they won a competition at the Museum of Modern Art with chairs in moulded plywood. There he also met the artist Ray Kaiser. They married in 1941 and moved to Los Angeles. During the Second World War they developed leg splints in moulded plywood for the US Navy, which taught them how to shape wood in three dimensions.
After the war came the LCW and DCW chairs in moulded plywood, produced by Herman Miller. In 1950 came shell chairs in fibreglass-reinforced plastic that could be mass-produced cheaply. The couple's own house in Pacific Palisades of 1949, built from standard parts taken from industrial catalogues, became an icon. In 1956 the Eames Lounge Chair and ottoman in plywood and leather was launched.
The couple also worked in film, photography, exhibitions and teaching. The short film Powers of Ten of 1977 shows the orders of magnitude of the universe. They created exhibitions for IBM and for the US government, including in Moscow in 1959, and helped found a design school in India. The work was done in their shared office, where everything was developed through constant prototyping and testing.
Charles Eames died in 1978. For many years he alone received the credit for the couple's work, but today it is emphasised that it was a partnership of equals. The Eameses are regarded as the most influential American designers of the 20th century.