Eames House or Case Study House No. 8

By:  Megan Chupco

 

The Eames House was conceptually designed, created, and built by Charles Eames.  The house is designed on a 150 foot cliff side in Pacific Palisades overlooking the Pacific Ocean and is designed to withstand the moist environment.  When developing the building they wanted to keep nature in mind, there theory was “1. Not destroy the meadow, 2. Maximize volume from minimal materials.”  They developed the residential building in an area surrounded by eucalyptus trees.  The construction used a variety of materials from a concrete foundation to glass, stucco, wood, and metal for the walls and an asphalt roof all composed on a steel frame.  The building creates a grid like pattern from the steel frame, they even emphasize the grid on their furnishings, and façade, ornamentation, glasswork and textiles (Photo at end of paragraph).  The design creates an industrial structure that creates straight lines with 90 degree angles.  The building creates a sense of uniformity through the different uses of planes solid, opaque, or translucent.   Charles Eames created a simple color palette with the use of strictly primary colors to be used throughout the house internally and externally.  

Photo Courtesy by MC Mr. E. © MC Mr. E, available exclusively through Artifice Images

The building is primarily an open plan with the ability to flow from one space to the other in an easy transition.  The exposed ceiling composed of Ferro board decking caused eye directional movement from one end of the building to the other by creating length.  The Eames did use a divider to differentiate between the kitchen and dining area; they used a modern fold door. The entrance and living room are informally divided by a storage area composed of metal doors and the spiral staircase, Eames created a sense of separation without actually dividing the space.  A product they used through most of the house was Factrolite which is a crystallographic type of glass used in the entrance and bathrooms.

Materials

Charles Eames wanted to create a space with minimal materials and was able to combine them all in a visually appealing sense. Several types of materials used as follow:

• Sharply pleated linen and rayon fabric drapery in a natural color by Deering Milliken
• Factrolite by Mississippi Glass Company
• Voit Rubber Tile in a Sea Sand color
• Prefabricated Metal Doors by Republic Steel
• Cemesto Panels painted in the primary colors (red, yellow, and blue)
• US Plywood bird’s eye maple (ceiling)
• US Plywood Walnut (walls)
• Enameled metal cabinets
• Marble Countertops
• White Linoleum tiles
• Translucent Plyon

The use of these materials not only created a sense of harmony and pattern but they were repeated throughout the residence creating a common domain and not being sporadic.

Photo Courtesy by MC Mr. E. © MC Mr. E, available exclusively through Artifice Images

Charles Eames was very talented and not only designed his wife and him their home that they would live in but he designed all of the furniture that furnished the residence.  In the living room he created a built L-Shape sofa along with wood shelving and upper storage cabinets.  They furnished the house with their famous Eames Leather Chair and Ottoman along with their Molded Plywood Lounge Chair.  The furniture maintained that same schematic design of being on a grid with straight 90 degree lines.  The Eames family was extremely on the artistic side and therefore displayed many work of arts by Hans Hofmann to expose contemporary art that was relevant to their style of furniture.

Photo Courtesy by MC Mr. E. © MC Mr. E, available exclusively through Artifice Images

The Eames House is Case Study House No. 8, it was one of the most successful houses out of the 24 that were designed conceptually or actually built.  Being able to start from one idea and transform that idea into something far different than original plan and turn out so harmonious is an excellent accomplishment. I believe the use of materials and craftsmanship that was put into this house made the design come together as an entity.  The Eames house has to be one of my favorite pieces of design both internally and externally.

Resources

http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Eames_House.html

http://www.architizer.com/en_us/blog/dyn/13112/if-you-like/

http://www.docomomo-us.org/register/fiche/eames_house

http://artsandarchitecture.com/case.houses/pdf01/08.pdf

http://eamesfoundation.org/eames-house-history

http://www.nps.gov/nhl/designations/samples/CA/Eames.pdf