Among the foremost creative partnerships of the 20th century, Ray and Charles Eames were known to shape not only things but the way people thought about things.
Though they’re known primarily for their chair and furniture designs, many still in production today, and their essayistic films, which look at our world from new perspectives, there is still much to reveal about what this fertile duo had up their sleeves, or, in Ray’s case, in the many pockets of the homemade skirts she used like a tool kit.
Those pockets—and then some—have been emptied out in the new Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity in Richmond, California. Prior to Ray’s death in 1988 and the subsequent closure of the Eames Office in Venice, California, the duo had organized for the donation of more than a million documents, including 750,000 slides, alongside films and negatives, to the Library of Congress. Yet even with further donations to Vitra and three museums, more than 40,000 objects remained.
Those objects, entrusted to Lucia Eames, Charles’s daughter from his first marriage (Ray and Charles had no children), were largely stored at her ranch in Petaluma, while she arranged a robust series of loans to promote their legacy. But the family always wanted to one day share their magical world with the public in a more expansive way.
It is now the turn of Llisa Demetrios, 58, chief curator of the Eames Institute and one of Lucia’s five children—each of whom has responsibilities for a sector of the estate—to help a creative team pull back the curtain on the depth and breadth of this astonishing archive. “It was a real joy to be around the material,” says Demetrios, who grew up surrounded by the many historic objects. Her goal is to inspire some of that same joy and sense of wonder in both the casual visitor and the scholar. “The fun part is watching people have these sort of aha moments,” she continues.
With Demetrios as a guide (thrice-weekly 90-minute tours are now available by reservation only), even those who have visited the Eames House in the Pacific Palisades will find much to surprise and delight them in this elegant and functional space, which now houses the Eames Institute collection drawn from the Petaluma archive, designed in collaboration with the Brooklyn-based firm Standard Issue.
After passing a small gift shop that carries, among other vintage treasures, the five books the institute has already produced on the Eames oeuvre (supplemented by a comprehensive Web site with online exhibitions), visitors are greeted in the gallery with an opening salvo of objects, including innovations such as bent-plywood leg splints for wounded soldiers.
But distractions are everywhere! A wall and parallel vitrine showcase a time line of the individual histories and accomplishments of Charles (born in 1907 in St. Louis) and Ray (born in 1912 in Sacramento). Her colorful abstract paintings, his architectural drawings, their innovative graphic designs, and one of the many love letters Charles wrote Ray after they met at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan (he was still married at the time) are evidence of two passionate spirits aligned.
Cranbrook taught the Eameses to think about the “next thing,” an underlying credo of the educational philosophy. So when it came to their designs, the Eameses’ approach to problem-solving was: investigate, test, fail, repeat. How, they wanted to know, did a piece of furniture make you feel? Did it deliver the best for the most for the least?, an Eames mantra oft repeated.
The institute’s vast Collections Center—used both for reference and for ways to approach the future—contains shelves of chair exploders deconstructing the progress of each iconic design. For the Eameses, every curve represented a parallel learning curve in ergonomics, mechanics, aesthetics, and affordability. If a design required leather only where your body touched the frame, the cost could come down. They had to scale up for commercial production, but they always kept the user in mind—coat aluminum so cold doesn’t transfer to your bottom; raise cabinets off the floor so they’re easier to clean.
The Eameses favored honest materials and stopped using rosewood after it became endangered and fiberglass after it was understood to be toxic. They developed flat packaging for easy assembly. Much of the Eames design collection is still in production today, with Herman Miller and Vitra.
Charles was the star and ruled the office, but the institute has made a special effort to highlight Ray’s many accomplishments. Increasingly, films became the tools Charles preferred for exploration, and some of them are on view in the entry gallery: Powers of Ten (1968) was an exponential dive into our place in the universe; Tops (1969) conferred personality on the twirling objects.
Multi-media presentations gave the designers a chance to interlink disciplines; connectivity was prized. The seams between home and office, work and play, were eliminated. From Billy Wilder to Saul Steinberg to Alexander Girard, they sought out the equally inventive.
The toys on view—18 cardboard boxes’ worth—were collected from the Eameses’ global travels and inspired new creations. “Toys and games are the preludes to serious ideas,” Charles said. Like Alexander Calder, the pair also drew inspiration from the circus. Cutout photos of friends and family, such as the paper dolls Ray had made as a girl, were used to populate models.
Rainbow-colored pencils, fabric swatches, and printed wallpapers are housed in the many storage drawers, while playful objects—such as a fun-house mirror evoking alternate realities and a gravity-fed Musical Tower with adjustable xylophone bars that originally played a tune by composer Elmer Bernstein—are freestanding.
As you navigate the magic of these design wizards, any other so-called immersive art experience pales in comparison. At the end of the tour, visitors are invited to a “chair tasting” featuring models such as La Chaise, the Lounge Chair, and the Molded Plastic Chair. As you stretch out on an armless black leather chaise they designed for Wilder, you can imagine him catnapping in his Hollywood office. The power of storytelling is what is so abundantly carried forward at the institute.
The Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity, in Richmond, California, is now open for visitors
Patricia Zohn has contributed to numerous publications, including Wallpaper, Artnet, the Huffington Post, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times