The History of the Eames Office Chair

Charles and Ray Eames remain amongst the greatest designers of the modern era. True polymaths, they created groundbreaking films, buildings and textiles. In furniture, they produced iconic designs that combined sleek aesthetics, major technical achievements and, above all else, comfort. Many designers have since taken their iconic work as inspiration, spinning all sorts of stylish, innovative and comfortable chairs. Amongst the Eameses' most famous designs was the Aluminium Group, commonly known these days as Eames office chairs.

The design was born out of a challenge set almost sixty years ago. The noted architects Eero Saarinen and Alexander Girard were designing the home of industrialist J. Irwin Miller: a house which has since been declared a National Historic Landmark. The house was to be the epitome of modern design and its interior uncluttered, but homely. Girard was a long time collaborator of the Eameses and asked them to design high-quality seating that could be used both inside and outside the house.

Charles and Ray Eames’ chair was to be a revolution. They constructed the seat frame from cast aluminium, making it lightweight but strong. The Eames chair could be moved about with ease and wouldn’t be easily damaged. The frame was designed to support a stretched synthetic mesh. The material was secure, but fitted loosely enough that it could conform to the body of anyone sitting in it. This mesh was not a standard cover for the seat, but an integral, load bearing part of the chair’s design. This form of seat suspension was a major technical breakthrough, throwing out the rulebook that had existed since the Ancient Greeks which said chairs should be a solid shell.

The chair went into mass production in 1958 as the Aluminium Group and has been on sale ever since. There have been some notable changes over the years. Nowadays the chairs are used almost exclusively indoors and have become associated with corporate environments such as offices, boardrooms and the like: hence the unofficial title “the Eames Office Chair”. To accommodate this change of environment, the original synthetic mesh was removed. It was designed for outdoor use and its removal allowed a wider variety of fabrics and upholstery to be fitted. New fittings have included different, more modern forms of mesh, fabric upholstery and, perhaps most famously, black padded leather.

Nowadays, the Eames’s legacy lives on in a range of chairs inspired by the Eames office chair. These new designs borrow many of the chair’s key features while continuing the process of innovation that the original designers so valued. In describing his design philosophy, Charles Eames used the parable of a banana leaf; used as a simple dish in southern India, the banana leaf was gradually made more and more ornate, until some finally returned to just using the simple leaf.

"I'm not prepared to say that the banana leaf that one eats off of is the same as the other eats off of, but it's that process that has happened within the man that changes the banana leaf"

This philosophy of returning to and recognising the elegance of simplicity can be seen in the designs the Eames have inspired.

The Chair You Don’t Realise You Know

When they unveiled the Eames Lounge Chair in 1956, Charles and Ray Eames described their new design as being “comfortable and un-designy”. Despite that, this it has gone on to become an icon of modern American design, appearing in films and television series as diverse as “Iron Man”, “Gossip Girl” and “House”. It has also inspired a wide range of replicas, some of which have even been hailed as better than the original.


You’ve seen an Eames Lounge Chair. Even if you think you haven’t, trust me, you have. OK, OK, I’m no mind reader, but the Eames Lounge Chair is an icon of the Modern design movement. First launched in 1956 as the Eames Lounge (670) and Ottoman (671) (the latter being the footstool that comes with it), the chair’s co-designer Charles Eames described it as being "comfortable and un-designy". It’s that discrete, familiar comfort that made this most famous Eames chair (for Charles and his wife Ray designed many) an icon of the Modern movement and as ubiquitous a piece of unshowy but stylish design as a Vettriano painting.


It’s also why I knowyou’ve seen one. Even if you don’t think you have. Dr Cox had one in his apartment in "Scrubs". Donald Draper and Dr Gregory House both have them in their offices. Steely Dan even sang a song about one. It’s hard to describe the piece without pictures, but I’ll try. The Eames chair almost resembles a bucket seat in design. Its back, arms and seat are joined together sequentially, screwed together by aluminium supports. The whole thing is fitted at a backwards angle to its swivel base, pulling the sitter back into its mitt-like shape. The raising of the sitter's legs makes the accompanying footstool (it's that Ottoman again) near essential and the whole thing almost ridiculously comfortable.


My citation of so many appearances on television isn’t accidental. You can't seperate the reasons for the Eames Lounge Chair's versatility and its many appearances in popular culture. It was unveiled in 1956, on the “Home” show, NBC’s hugely popular daytime magazine programme fronted by actress and game show panellist Arlene Francis and a huge advertising campaign followed immediately. The campaign focused on the chair's versatility, showing it in a whole host of unlikely locations. It’s that same versatility which explains its continuous place in popular culture - and, in particular, the American popular imagination. The Eames Lounge Chair is comfortable yet smart, stylish yet understated. That’s why it can sit as easily in Frasier’s luxurious Seattle apartment as it can in the TARDIS.


The Eames Lounge Chair has become almost the epitome of a perennial favourite, having been in continual production since its launch. In America, it has been producedby Herman Miller, while Vitra began producing Eames chairs in Europe a while later. It has also inspired replicas, imitations and knock offs of varying quality - China being the source of many. Some of these are dire to say the least. Spray painted cushions, exposed screws and poor quality materials are amongst the complaints that have come from those who bought cheap, fast buck knock offs. On the other hand, some replica Eames chairs have been hailed as even better than the originals, offering increased versatility and the option to customise the colours of your purchase to fit your tastes and the design of your home or office.


The Eames Lounge Chair has long been an icon of usability and style. You’ve seen it so many times that you don’t even realise it. Now you’ve come to understand why it’s so popular, maybe it’s time you started paying it a bit more attention.