"Eames" book - Taschen

The creative duo formed by Charles Eames (1907–1978) and Ray Kaiser Eames (1912–1988) transformed the visual character of America. Though best known for their furniture, the husband-and-wife team were also pioneers in the fields of architecture, textile design, photography and film. The Eameses' work defined a new, multifunctional modernity, exemplary in the way it brought together craft and design, as well as in its use of modern materials, particularly plywood and plastics. The Eames Lounge Chair Wood, shaped from moulded and bent plywood, helped define twentieth-century furniture, while the couple's contribution to the Case Study Houses programme drew inventively on industrial materials while proposing a flexible plan of multipurpose spaces that would become a hallmark of post-war modern architecture. From the couple's earliest furniture experiments to their seminal short film Powers of Ten, this book covers every aspect of the Eameses' illustrious repertoire and its revolutionary impact on middle-class American life. About the author Architectural historian Gloria Koenig has lectured and published on numerous subjects relating to contemporary architecture. She has also served as a consultant to the film-makers who made a documentary about her late husband, the modernist architect Pierre Koenig. About the editor Peter Gössel runs a design agency for museums and exhibitions. For TASCHEN he has published monographs on Julius Shulman, R. M. Schindler, John Lautner and Richard Neutra, as well as several titles in the Basic Architecture series.