The 670 Eames Lounge Chair

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In 1956, the 670 Eames Lounge Chair together with its ottoman made a debut on the Home show hosted by Arlene Francis on NBC. Designed by Charles & Ray Eames, the then new masterpiece was said to be the ‘modernised version of the old English club chair’ which later became a true design icon of the 20th Century.

History of 670 Eames Lounge Chair
Charles & Ray Eames, a prolific duo well known for their objective to design furniture for mass production and retailed at affordable cost came up with one of the most unique seating collection during their time. Charles Eames wanted to fulfil the need for an adequately proportionate lounge chair that provides comfort, fabricated from the highest quality material and produced with good craftsmanship. Contrary to their initial objective, the duo developed a design for a rather up-scaled piece that was made to be luxurious and originally not intended for mass production.

Back in 1940, the husband and wife together with Eero Saarinen, took part in The Museum of Modern Art’s Organic Design in Home Furnishings competition. It was for this competition where they explored and studied plywood to be made adaptable to the contour of the human body and flexibility according to the design they had in mind. This material however, had splintered and cracked on many of their attempts. A great amount of time for their experiment was spent on analysing the resilience of the plywood. The whole development process for the chair itself took thirteen years to be fully completed and finally produced.

In 1945, following the episode on the experimentation with plywood structures, the Eameses produced a series of moulded Plywood Chair that comes in various versions – lounge chair, dining chair and with metal...

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...aces such as bachelors pad, family rooms and study. By the existence of such replicas, the chair loses it exclusivity and value. It simply changes the kind of appreciation we have for the original piece of furniture. Replicas of such great pieces fail to show honour and respect to the designers and its heritage.

However, the value of the chair has never once decrease since the day it has been made, which shows how the chair has managed to retain its level of exclusivity throughout these years.

Works Cited

DirectDesignNL. 2011. Eames Lounge Chair van Vitra debut in 1956 on NBC. [Video online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnLiiP3-d9c [Accessed: 10 Nov 2013].

Vitra. 2013. Vitra | Products: Lounge Chair. [online] Available at: http://www.vitra.com/en-gb/product/lounge-chair [Accessed: 10 Nov 2013].

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/eame/hd_eame.htm

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