By the late 1960s Charles and Ray Eames had achieved unparalleled renown as designers, and were sought after by prestigious institutions, powerful government agencies, and leading global corporations for their abilities. Now staffed by dozens of employees, the attention of the Eames Office was divided between World’s Fair pavilions, globe-trotting exhibitions, complex proposals and research projects, emergent technologies, lectures, and films. Despite this multifarious roster of high-profile undertakings, the Eameses continued to work away in the field that initially propelled them to fame: furniture design.
Building almost entirely upon preexisting designs and platforms, The Last Decade of Eames Furniture presents a period of steady refinement and technological adaptation. As Herman Miller’s and Vitra’s business shifted almost exclusively to the contract office market, an emphasis on furniture for workplaces supplanted the residential focus of prior decades. Earlier designs in plywood and fiberglass were re-thought and re-cast using the latest polyurethanes, injection molding techniques, and plastics. While some stood the test of time to become present-day classics, others lapsed into obscurity.
With a trove of rarely seen archival images, and exhaustive documentation of every furniture design from the final decade of the Eames Office in Charles’s lifetime, this new exhibition catalog brings this lesser-known and underappreciated era of their work into focus.
Essay by Amy Auscherman, MillerKnoll corporate archivist, author, and design historian
Paperback with cover wrap
172 pages, 7.3 x 10.3 inches
ISBN: 979-8-9878314-5-8
