Charles Ormond Eames is an icon and one of the defining influences of a design generation, and it’s little wonder that the American designer remains one of the modern design industry’s chief source of inspiration and one of the main reasons many have become designers in the first place.
Born in 1907 in St. Louis, Eames was a primary driving force behind the Modernist movement in furniture design, and his revolutionary approach to designing certainly set him apart from the crowd. He, along with his fellow design luminaries such as Harry Bertoia and Hans Wegner, truly advanced furniture design, with one of the main piece for which Eames is best remembered is that of his wonderfully inventive yet incredibly understated DSW Chair (which you can see above).
Eames originally designed the piece as his entry to a low cost furniture competition which was being run by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in Manhattan and, as you may well have noted, it got a rather favourable response. So favorable, in fact, that it’s one of the most recognisable and sought after pieces of designer furniture of the last century.
Eames’ DSW Chair was a highly innovative design and was, in fact, the first industrially manufactured plastic chair of its type when it first found its way onto the marketplace in the late 1940’s. It boasts an understated visual appeal which lends itself perfectly to today’s contemporary homes, and it truly is testament to Eames’ unparalleled skills as a designer. It’s a design that remains as relevant and suited to modern homes as it did when it was released it over half a century ago.
