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After the Molded Fiberglass and Plywood chairs, Charles and Ray Eames designed the Wire Chair. A product that could look like the previous successful chairs but that needed a completely different production technology: a new Mid-Century design icon was born.

Thanks to its transparency, the Wire chair, achieved a rare sculptural level for the postwar furniture design. Even if the influence of fine art has always been considered secondary in the design philosophy of Charles and Ray Eames, this object -combining a sculptural value with an optimized industrial process- definitely achieved a landmark status. The combination of the Ray’s artistic side and the Charle’s engineering sensibility is probably one of the reason behind great products like the Wire chair.

The Wire chair can be compared to previous fiberglass side-chairs like the DAR(1948) and the DSR (1950), and even though its shape is quite similar to them it is based on a completely different technology. Charles and Ray Eames loved to experiment new industrial processes and that’s why the Wire is a symbol of their design philosophy.

The organic form offers comfort without the need for upholstery, although the chair readily accepted seat or back pads, which also create a beautiful pattern. It is a design that may be translated via interchangeable range bases, to suit a wide variety of applications. The most iconic of these bases is the ‘Eiffel Tower’ base, which creates a dramatic vision of fine cross-hatching of chrome or black steel.

The use of the new technology of resistance-welding in furniture design expressed a futuristic vision through lightness and form. Although there is still some debate over whose design come first, the Charles and Ray Eameses’ chair or Harry Bertoia’a mesh furniture for Knoll, the first American mechanical patent was awarded to the Eames design.

The Eameses undoubtedly led the postwar design era, advocating the organic Modernism with their sculptural, unique products designed to be mass-produced thanks to new technologies; thanks to them, Herman Miller become the leader in the home and office furniture. The Wire chair was an immediate successful and proved to be timeless.

Mid-Century has been one of the most creative age for design that influenced the interior decors of the last decades. To discover everything about it, check Mid Century Home now!

The most remarkable furnishings from the mid-century at the time represented simply 5 percent among all furnishings offered. Even though the furniture industry was decentralized throughout the country, a high percentage came out of the main furniture production area, the Grand Rapids, Michigan.The sales of modern home furniture were mainly concentrated in the Northeastern havens of sophistication, but as California developed in the 1950s modern furnishings had immediate, widespread fortune there.

in 1957, home furniture sales and profits in California reached and led those of New York. Californian contribution to the good design movement was substantial, from hallowed name of Eames to Paul Laszlo, Paul Tuttle, Kipp Stuart and others. In addition to the success of mass-manufactured products in California and the New York area, enthusiastic buyers held their preferred designers, bringing into existence countless unique products, interesting not only for their rarity but for the striking originality of their designs.

CHARLES AND RAY EAMES Charles Eames is the undisputed protagonist of twentieth-century American furniture and interior decor design scene. His wife, Ray Kaiser Eames, and collaborator was always his shadow. Not that she ever minded: “Charles was a genius” (…) “I could never have done it myself.” However neither, most likely, could he. The two were a couple in life and at work from 1940 until his death in 1978, from the first molded plywood chairs to the last work for Herman Miller, a sofa that has not been produced untill 1984.

The start up point of lots of their ideas was frequently a friend’s asking for a particular piece of furniture. ‘That’s the way things usually happened’ Ray Eames remembered ‘Someone be would having a baby and needed a rocking chair, so we would design one. The aluminium group come about as a result of a friend’s request for indoor/outdoor furniture. There was never a chance to think, what shall we do next? One thing lead to another. There was always something that needed doing, a hole that needed filling’.

Starting from a friend’s need, then, were born many of the most succesfull Eameses’ mid-century furniture. The Eameses’ always had in front the goal to create an object with an efficient mass-production system. Ray Eames stated: ‘We wanted to get as much quality as possible into mass production so that more people could live with well-made things’. That’s why the Eameses’ works characterized the mid-century interiors as well as the ones of many decades later.

GEORGE NELSON George Nelson was the design department director of Heman Milller, the furniture company who manufactured the all Eameses’ products during the mid-century. He started his career writing about architecture -he was an architect himself- moving later to the furniture manufacturing business in Herman Miller. One of his most important and famous products come in late 1940s when he invented the Storagewall; a flexible system of case pieces mounted on aluminium poles to assuage the pet peeve of the home front: lack of closet space. Next come the Basic Cabinet Series, introduced in 1947, with rectilinear components arrayed on supporting benches. After a decade of refinements, the BCS involved more complex units, which were available in four finishes with satin chrome or porcelain pulls, and triangular aluminium or 7-inch legs.

Mid-Century has been one of the most creative era for design influencing the interiors of the following decades. If you want to learn all about it, checkMid Century Home now!