Vitra - Charles Eames, Ray Eames - Office chair - EA 117 - Steel, Textiles
The Aluminum Chair is one of the most significant furniture creations of the 20th century. It was originally created for a private house in Columbus (Indiana, USA) , built by architects Eero Saarinen and Alexander Girard in the mid-1950s. Charles and Ray Eames chose a new approach for the structure of the chair.
Instead of using the then widespread principle of the shell, they positioned a cloth or leather sheet between two aluminum sides, leaving it taut, but with a shock-absorbing effect.
The towel adapts to the body and offers high comfort even without sophisticated padding.
The shape of the Aluminum Chair is clean and transparent, the structure clearly visible.
The model presented in this auction is produced by Vitra post 2000. The structure is in polished aluminum and the covering is in black Hopsak fabric.
Since the chair has been little used, it is in excellent used condition with very slight signs of age.
The gas lift system of the seat is fully functional, as is the clutch for tilting the backrest. The free wheels are active rotation.
The chair was thoroughly cleaned, sanitized and the aluminum structure polished.
There are labels and punched marks of Eames / Vitra identifications.
Online retail price €3,000
Armchair dimensions: Height 83 Width 51 Depth 70
Our company ORVETT offers shipping insurance for Europe.
For "rest of the world" shipping the cost is indicative. We will formulate a quote once the auction is over according to the destination.
Through the creation of authentic design icons, the experimental spirit and the continuous attention to the mediation between concept development and communication, Charles and Ray Eames embodied at the same time the design of the twentieth century and a certain independence of the American context from European dynamics and influences .
Charles and Ray Eames married in 1942 and moved to California: he worked on sets for MGM, but they soon began their experiments — as the Plyformed Wood Company — with bent plywood for prosthetics and medical equipment, which guaranteed them state funds and advanced means of production. In the post-war years this experimentation evolved into a season of great success, in which the Eames created their most iconic pieces, destined to become milestones in the history of design: exhibited at the Mo. MA in 1946 in the exhibition New furniture designed by Charles and Ray Eames , will be chosen by Herman Miller to be produced and marketed, opening a historic production collaboration that is still ongoing. In the research phase preceding the exhibition, the prototypes developed are made of plywood curved (with a machine called Kazam!) into several separate pieces, a technique that is preferred to that of the single piece for reasons of maintenance cost-effectiveness and versatility: the DCW appears (Dining Chair Wood) , the LCW (Lounge Chair Wood) and the LCM (Lounge Chair Metal) .
The subsequent steps saw the integration of new materials and techniques, in particular printable plastics, or the fiberglass of the one-piece armchair with crossed metal feet (1948) , or La chaise (1949) which however only went into production in 1990. Metal, its combinability with other materials and in spatial structures is another point of great importance in this research, as demonstrated by the combinations with wood of the Eames Storage Units (1950) and the LTR Low Table Rod Base, or the plasticity of the network metal that structures the Bikini chairs (1953-56) . After a decade of studies, in 1956 the definitive version of the Lounge Chair and Ottoman was presented, an icon of design and the only exception to the Eames philosophy of "maximum quality at the lowest price", with its metal and rosewood structure and leather upholstery. .
Charles and Ray Eames also developed architecture, and the origin of their most famous creation, the Eames House (1945-49) , was their collaboration with the magazine Arts & Architecture and its director John Entenza. He launched the Case Study House Program in 1945, involving big names in the architecture of the time in the development of housing prototypes near Santa Monica (California) . Case Study House #8, designed with Eero Sarinen, is the Eames House, and extends the principles of its designers and residents to a building scale: "wanting to obtain the maximum volume with the minimum materials", the steel profiles placed arrangement for construction are organized in a neutral grid in which, based on Ray's design, glass infills or panels of different colors are then combined, "the inevitable result of organic design", as she herself defines them. The result is the coupling of a residential volume with one used as a studio, perfectly modern and simultaneously integrated into the nature of their site.
The Eames' design concept is vast, and also covers the fields of education and communication. It is expressed in games, such as the House of Cards (1952) , The Toy (1950) , the Revell Toy House in full Eames-style (1959, not marketed) . It also passes through the creation of shows and expositions, in which the informative spirit of many of their creations materializes, such as the Mathematica exhibition (1961) , or the many collaborations with IBM for films, editions and exhibition pavilions (over 50 projects) . Films are one of the most fertile fields in the production of the two designers: between 1950 and 1978 Charles and Ray Eames made over 100 films - "attempts to convey an idea" as they define them - of different subjects and durations: from The information Machine (1957) for IBM, which extends A communication primer (1953) - a film that explains the functioning of computers and which had pushed IBM to begin its long collaboration with designers - up to Banana Leaf (1972) on the value of objects in the diversity of social classes and the famous Powers of Ten: A film dealing with the Relative Size of things in the universe and the effect of Adding Another Zero (1977) , a scientific exploration of the relative size of things and the role of distance in observation.
Charles Eames died in 1978, and Ray Kaiser Eames dedicated the following ten years, until his death, to organizing and disseminating their production.
View it on
Sale price
Estimate
Time, Location
Auction House
The Aluminum Chair is one of the most significant furniture creations of the 20th century. It was originally created for a private house in Columbus (Indiana, USA) , built by architects Eero Saarinen and Alexander Girard in the mid-1950s. Charles and Ray Eames chose a new approach for the structure of the chair.
Instead of using the then widespread principle of the shell, they positioned a cloth or leather sheet between two aluminum sides, leaving it taut, but with a shock-absorbing effect.
The towel adapts to the body and offers high comfort even without sophisticated padding.
The shape of the Aluminum Chair is clean and transparent, the structure clearly visible.
The model presented in this auction is produced by Vitra post 2000. The structure is in polished aluminum and the covering is in black Hopsak fabric.
Since the chair has been little used, it is in excellent used condition with very slight signs of age.
The gas lift system of the seat is fully functional, as is the clutch for tilting the backrest. The free wheels are active rotation.
The chair was thoroughly cleaned, sanitized and the aluminum structure polished.
There are labels and punched marks of Eames / Vitra identifications.
Online retail price €3,000
Armchair dimensions: Height 83 Width 51 Depth 70
Our company ORVETT offers shipping insurance for Europe.
For "rest of the world" shipping the cost is indicative. We will formulate a quote once the auction is over according to the destination.
Through the creation of authentic design icons, the experimental spirit and the continuous attention to the mediation between concept development and communication, Charles and Ray Eames embodied at the same time the design of the twentieth century and a certain independence of the American context from European dynamics and influences .
Charles and Ray Eames married in 1942 and moved to California: he worked on sets for MGM, but they soon began their experiments — as the Plyformed Wood Company — with bent plywood for prosthetics and medical equipment, which guaranteed them state funds and advanced means of production. In the post-war years this experimentation evolved into a season of great success, in which the Eames created their most iconic pieces, destined to become milestones in the history of design: exhibited at the Mo. MA in 1946 in the exhibition New furniture designed by Charles and Ray Eames , will be chosen by Herman Miller to be produced and marketed, opening a historic production collaboration that is still ongoing. In the research phase preceding the exhibition, the prototypes developed are made of plywood curved (with a machine called Kazam!) into several separate pieces, a technique that is preferred to that of the single piece for reasons of maintenance cost-effectiveness and versatility: the DCW appears (Dining Chair Wood) , the LCW (Lounge Chair Wood) and the LCM (Lounge Chair Metal) .
The subsequent steps saw the integration of new materials and techniques, in particular printable plastics, or the fiberglass of the one-piece armchair with crossed metal feet (1948) , or La chaise (1949) which however only went into production in 1990. Metal, its combinability with other materials and in spatial structures is another point of great importance in this research, as demonstrated by the combinations with wood of the Eames Storage Units (1950) and the LTR Low Table Rod Base, or the plasticity of the network metal that structures the Bikini chairs (1953-56) . After a decade of studies, in 1956 the definitive version of the Lounge Chair and Ottoman was presented, an icon of design and the only exception to the Eames philosophy of "maximum quality at the lowest price", with its metal and rosewood structure and leather upholstery. .
Charles and Ray Eames also developed architecture, and the origin of their most famous creation, the Eames House (1945-49) , was their collaboration with the magazine Arts & Architecture and its director John Entenza. He launched the Case Study House Program in 1945, involving big names in the architecture of the time in the development of housing prototypes near Santa Monica (California) . Case Study House #8, designed with Eero Sarinen, is the Eames House, and extends the principles of its designers and residents to a building scale: "wanting to obtain the maximum volume with the minimum materials", the steel profiles placed arrangement for construction are organized in a neutral grid in which, based on Ray's design, glass infills or panels of different colors are then combined, "the inevitable result of organic design", as she herself defines them. The result is the coupling of a residential volume with one used as a studio, perfectly modern and simultaneously integrated into the nature of their site.
The Eames' design concept is vast, and also covers the fields of education and communication. It is expressed in games, such as the House of Cards (1952) , The Toy (1950) , the Revell Toy House in full Eames-style (1959, not marketed) . It also passes through the creation of shows and expositions, in which the informative spirit of many of their creations materializes, such as the Mathematica exhibition (1961) , or the many collaborations with IBM for films, editions and exhibition pavilions (over 50 projects) . Films are one of the most fertile fields in the production of the two designers: between 1950 and 1978 Charles and Ray Eames made over 100 films - "attempts to convey an idea" as they define them - of different subjects and durations: from The information Machine (1957) for IBM, which extends A communication primer (1953) - a film that explains the functioning of computers and which had pushed IBM to begin its long collaboration with designers - up to Banana Leaf (1972) on the value of objects in the diversity of social classes and the famous Powers of Ten: A film dealing with the Relative Size of things in the universe and the effect of Adding Another Zero (1977) , a scientific exploration of the relative size of things and the role of distance in observation.
Charles Eames died in 1978, and Ray Kaiser Eames dedicated the following ten years, until his death, to organizing and disseminating their production.
Sale price
Estimate
Time, Location
Auction House
