At Home With the Eameses
The first comprehensive study of residences designed by Charles and Ray Eames argues that architecture formed the basis for all of their designs.
The era-defining influence on design by Charles and Ray Eames was once sardonically described, in an essay by architects Alison and Peter Smithson, as “Just a few chairs and a house.”
Eames chairs are, of course, iconic, with some of the most famous types using industrial materials such as plastic and fibreglass to produce functional, comfortable, and beautiful designs. The essay’s titular house was the couple’s own, Case Study House No. 8, or the Eames house, in the Pacific Palisades of Los Angeles. Built in 1949 by the midcentury designers, the colourful structure was where Charles and Ray lived and worked for the rest of their lives. It’s preserved largely as it was left, and small groups enjoy a 90-minute tour of its interior—no photographs, please—for a cool $2,500.
But the Eames house wasn’t a singular event, according to The Eames Houses, a new book from Phaidon that offers a deep dive into the couple’s residential designs at a much more accessible price than a tour. In fact, author Eckart Maise says, architecture was the guiding principle of the Eameses’ entire oeuvre. Covering the decade during which the couple designed eight residential projects (some never built), the book is positioned as the first comprehensive study of their architectural mindset and an essential sourcebook for anyone interested in prefabrication, modular construction, and adaptable housing. Even for those already familiar with the Eames House, there is a wealth of new material to discover, some only recently discovered in unopened boxes in the foundation’s archives.
Richly illustrated over 272 pages, and featuring essays by notable specialists in the field such as Norman Foster and Catherine Ince, the book starts with Case Study Houses Nos. 8 and 9, produced in collaboration with Eero Saarinen. The designs were born out of a remarkable initiative, nearly impossible to imagine happening today, started by John Entenza, the editor of Arts & Architecture magazine. In the July 1945 issue, Entenza launched the Case Study House Program, an open call for architects to design prototype homes for imaginary clients in specific living situations using subsidized materials available in the postwar market. Other teams included Richard Neutra, Ralph Rapson, William Wurster, and Rodney Walker.
Case Study House No. 8 was intended for a married couple working in design and graphic arts whose daughter had moved out: the Eameses themselves. No. 9, on the adjacent lot, was tailored to a bachelor who liked to entertain groups but also required solitude for reading: Entenza, in a nutshell. In delightful detail, The Eames Houses delivers full specs, blueprints, sketches and drawings, photographs, correspondence, and collected oral histories relating to the construction of these houses, as well as narrative tours through the structures that put it all into perspective.
We learn that Entenza had a custom “womb room,” described as “a cave-like retreat for focused editorial work, during which he could only be reached via a built-in intercom system,” a dream situation for many writers. We also find out that No. 8 as it was first imagined was never built, despite being in development for years. The house standing today was a total reinvention, put together in under a week, and bears the firm imprint of Ray’s contributions.
One of the book’s core strengths is its reliance on primary sources. The same attention is paid to all houses, cataloguing plans that were revised repeatedly or never built at all. Those unrealized proposals are often as revealing as the completed houses because they show the Eameses testing ideas that later surfaced in furniture, exhibitions, and industrial design, explored in mini-chapters on collages, kites, the short film House: After Five Years of Living, furniture, and toys. All centred on modular systems, flexibility, and everyday living.
As Charles said in a 1973 film, quoted in the book’s final chapter, “Whether it’s in film, or in the exhibitions, or concepts, ideas of any sort. I think it’s architecture. That’s what we draw on all the time.” In a separate interview a year later, Ray concurs: “Everything is architecture.”
Photographs courtesy of Phaidon
