Eames House

Charles and Ray Eames are probably the most influential and successful designers of this century. Their universal inventive genius has generated products which, despite their unconventionality, can be called "classical" and which had a unique impact on the field of design of their times. In particular, their chairs and couches enjoy enormous populartiy and are furthermore among the most comfortable and elegant furniture pieces imaginable. The same can be said of their famous house in California which can be seen as an early prototype of modern architecture. This house, which the designers built as both home and studio, clearly demonstrates that new structural and designing criteria were established and that few other houses have been so ahead of their time. The entire development in "high-tech" architecture is evinced in this unique structure which is presented and studied in this volume. The book unravels the history of the genesis of the house as well as the interwoven life-story of its residents. Today still, this house appears like an elusive utopia, a compendium of architectural ideas which have not lost any of their contemporaneity or topicality. In the transperency and lightness of this house, which is elegantly integrated in the landscape, one can see what real "intelligent architecture" should look like.