Charles and Ray Eames

Charles and Ray Eames were famous American designers that married in 1941. Together they made many major contribuitions in the fields of architecture, industrial design, furniture design, art, graphic design, and even film. They became so influential that the time period from which their work was created has become known as the “Eames Era”.

Charles Ormond Eames, Jr., born in St. Louis, Missouri, first learned about architecture, design, and engineering when he was 14 years old working at the Laclede Steel Company as a part-time laborer. No doubt, this is where his dream of an architect was born. Charles studied architecture at Washington University in St. Louis on an architectural scholarship for a short time. Drawn to modern architecture, such as Frank Lloyd Wright, he was quickly dimissed from the very traditional school bacause his views were too modern. Before leaving Washington University, he met his first wife, Catherine Woermann, and they eventually married in 1929. They had a daughter, whom they named Lucia. After leaving Washington University, Eames and partners Charles Gray and later Walter Pauley started up their own practice.

In 1938 Charles Eames moved his family to Michigan so that he could study architecture at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. He eventually become a teacher and head of the industrial design department. As a student, he and Eero Saarinen designed prize-winning furniture for New York's Museum of Modern Art "Organic Design" competition. In 1941, Charles and Catherine divorced, and he married a colleague Ray Kaiser, who was born in Sacramento, California. Ray too, was a designer and architect, as well as a film maker. Together they moved to Los Angeles, California, where they would work and live for the rest of their lives. The couple designed their home as part of a case study for the Arts & Architecture magazine. Their design is known as the Eames House, Case Study House #8. The home, located upon a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, was constructed soley out of pre-fabricated steel parts intended for industrial construction and is considered a beacon of modern architecture.