The epitome of Modernist style and luxurious comfort, Charles and Ray Eames's leather-upholstered rosewood-veneered chair and matching ottoman, launched in 1956, is a design classic of the twentieth century. This major publication, celebrating the Lounge Chair's fiftieth anniversary, explores the design in detail and places it in its cultural, historical and social contexts, offering fresh insights into this revered icon and its equally revered creators.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Martin Eidelberg is professor emeritus of art history at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey. Thomas Hilne is a social, cultural and design historian and critic. Pat Kirkham is a professor at the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture, New York. David Hanks is consulting curator for design at the Grand Rapids Art Museum, Michigan. C.Ford Peatross is curator of the Architecture, Design, and Engineering Collections, Prints and Photographs Division, at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lounging about,
This review is from: The Eames Lounge Chair: An Icon of Modern Design (Hardcover)
At last a book about THAT chair. Thomas Hine, one of the contributors to this interesting book, writes a chapter about the way the chair kept popping up in all the right media and this probably helped it along to its iconic status. I was aware of the chair many years ago and kept seeing it in interior design photos, adverts, and anywhere that visually needed to project an upmarket ambience. Strangely I never saw anyone sitting in these chairs and I was surprised to find, when I bought one, that the back does not support one's head. A 1956 photo used in a Herman Miller ad shows a stockbroker friend of Charles Eames clearly with his head on the back, he was either a short guy or had moved well forward in the chair.
The book is a celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the chair by five contributors with over two hundred illustrations. I thought Pat Kirkham's chapter on the chair's development the most interesting. There is a 1946 photo of a chair that is clearly a prototype for the final 1956 version. Another photo, from 1950 shows Billy Wilder sitting in this '46 version. Although Charles Eames designed the chair there was a huge technical input from Don Albinson who worked in the Eames Office. The book is a handsome production, well thought out editorially and nicely designed and printed though there is a bit of unnecessary design whimsy with the chapter titled 'The Lounge Chair: idea to icon'. It has seventy-seven pages of photos and graphics with no page numbers, the captions are on three following pages where the illustrations are repeated as thumbnails with the relevant text, in fact the seventy-seven pages had enough space for these captions. Also I would have liked to have seen a technical drawing of the chair and ottoman with dimensions. Despite a rather high list price I thought this book was a super reminder of a brilliant example of product design. The chair's status is surely growing because by 2004 over one hundred thousand had been sold and that most likely includes mine. ***FOR AN LOOK INSIDE click 'customer images' under the cover.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful book,
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This review is from: The Eames Lounge Chair: An Icon of Modern Design (Hardcover)
If you are an Eames Lounge Chair aficionado, this is the book for you. The text is well written and goes into great detail about the history of Ray & Charles, as well as many other designers from that era... and the photographs are beautiful. I still don't have an original Lounge Chair, but this book helps to keep my hopes alive while I sit in my knock-off, half-destroyed Plycraft that I picked up for cheap in a junk store.
Enjoy!
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Eames Lounge Chair reference book.,
By
This review is from: The Eames Lounge Chair: An Icon of Modern Design (Hardcover)
My uncle, a well-known architect, was the first in our family to own one in the 1950's. Another member of our extended family, an attorney was the second owner shortly after.
A few years ago I too succumbed and purchased an Eames chair and ottoman, and thus became the third. To my knowledge all three chairs remain intact, comfortable, enjoyed, shared by the family members, and in use. Now we have an excellent book, " The Eames Lounge Chair: An Icon of Modern Design " to enhance the knowledge of Ray and Charles Eames, The Eames Lounge Chair, and the Eames Foundation which continues the fine work of this family of designers. This hardcover book first arrived and spent a couple of months on our coffee table near the chair, a Noguchi glass table. Anyone coming over would usually take a look at the book, the chair, then the book again, and the 27-30 pages of color pictures about the chair. The glass table was missed completely. There are many pages about the early design, and the construction of the first chair and footrest for the famous Hollywood director, Billy Wilder. To most of our guests having picked up and read the book, the comment was " This is really amazing !' or " I had no idea this chair was so old ! " One guest thought the chair was actually a Bauhaus-design, until he read our Eames book. " Very informative " came the reply. How popular a read is it ? I put the book away in a nearby bookcase, and the following week someone who had seen it before asked where it was, or if it had been stolen. So back it came, where it remains today. To the enthusiast, owner, potential owner, design student, or those enamoured with the nostalgia of the 1950's, this is the best written Eames Chair compilation yet on the market today. There is much factual information to read and enjoy here. On any day or evening, this is a good read to pull out and enjoy as many times as you want. I encourage you to do so !
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