INDOOR OUTDOOR GROUP
Herman Miller Furniture Company, Charles Eames
Herman Miller Furniture Company, Charles Eames: INDOOR OUTDOOR GROUP. Zeeland, Michigan: The Herman Miller Furniture Company, [1958]. First edition. Slim quarto. 17 x 11 single fold brochure. Photographs and specifications. Fore edge lightly worn, but a nearly fine copy.
“Aluminum Group chairs began as a challenge among legendary designers. Eero Saarinen and Alexander Girard were designing the Columbus, Indiana, home of industrialist J. Irwin Miller. They wanted a high-quality seating product for outdoor use and asked Charles and Ray Eames to develop one.
“Known for their honest use of materials, the Eameses constructed their chairs with cast aluminum and a seat frame meant to support a stretched synthetic mesh. The seat-back suspension was a major technical achievement and represented a departure from the concept of the chair as a solid shell.
Those chairs became the Aluminum Group, which Herman Miller began manufacturing in 1958. And while they have been in continuous demand, the line has changed and grown over the years. The original mesh meant for outdoor use was discontinued, along with the 4-star base and painted arms on the early designs.” — The Herman Miller Furniture Company
”Eventually everything connects – people, ideas, objects, etc., . . . the quality of the connections is the key to quality per se.” — Charles Eames
Charles (1907 – 1978) and Ray Eames (1912 – 1988) created more than a look with their bent plywood chairs or molded fiberglass seating. They had ideas about making a better world, one in which things were designed to fulfill the practical needs of ordinary people and bring greater simplicity and pleasure to our lives.
”. . . everything hangs on something else.” — Ray Eames
The Eameses adventurously pursued new ideas and forms with a sense of serious fun. Yet, it was rigorous discipline that allowed them to achieve perfection of form and mastery over materials. As Charles noted about the molded plywood chair, “Yes, it was a flash of inspiration,” he said, “a kind of 30-year flash.” Combining imagination and thought, art and science, Charles and Ray Eames created some of the most influential expressions of 20th century design – furniture that remains stylish, fresh and functional today.
And they didn't stop with furniture. The Eameses also created a highly innovative “case study” house in response to a magazine contest. They made films, including a seven-screen installation at the 1959 Moscow World's Fair, presented in a dome designed by Buckminster Fuller. They designed showrooms, invented toys and generally made the world a more interesting place to be. As the most important exponents of organic design, Charles and Ray Eames demonstrated how good design can improve quality of life and human understanding and knowledge. [hm_2019]