Timeline

1940

• Working with Eero Saarinen to explore how to use plywood with seating. MOMA had a competition called Organic Design in Home Furnishings in 1941.
• Molded plywood not bent

“We would be able to appreciate organic forms even more if they were surrounded by geometry”

1941

• Worked at MGM
• Kazam! Machine to mold wood in their house

1942-1944

• Got a contract with the army to make molded plywood leg splints
• They investigated how to streamline the process as well as ergonomic
• Molded airplane parts

1942-1945

• Seating studies to figure out how to mold a chair with glue and wood base or metal base
• How many parts
• Molded in about 10 minutes
• Leading the prices to be low
• They invented the machine/mechanics to mold plywood
• Cost total about $150 today ($1,200 new today)

1946

• New Furniture Designed by Charles Eames, MOMA
• A drum with a chair showing how durable it is
• First 5,000 of the chairs were essentially handmade

1948

• La Chaise - somewhat failed chair, only made a prototype, was too expensive to make. Was reintroduced in 1990’s by Vitra. But led to the shell chairs
• 1949
• Eames House Built

1951

• DKR Wire Mesh Chair. Harry Bertoia’s chair came out of this chair, he was working at Eames at the time and not getting attribution. Left and went to Knoll.
• Eames Storage Unit, Herman Miller
• Designed to have interchangeable parts, different colors. Assembly turned out to be difficult. Meant for home and office.

1954

• Arm Shell was super successful
• 1956
• Lounge Chair & Ottoman

1957

• Solar Do-Nothing Machine, using aluminium exposed the eames to aluminum to see if they would start working with it

1958

• Aluminum Chair parts for bases
• Aluminum group chair

1960

• Contract Storage, designed for dorms and were placed in many schools

1961

• Mathematica: A World of Numbers

1962

• Tandem Sling Seating (Airport Seating)

1964

• IBM Pavilion, NY World Fair
• Design Process/Problem Solving: State the problem, collect the information, abstract the  information, build a model, test the model, manipulate the model.

1969

• Statement of the Design Process, Charles Eames

1977

• Powers of Ten