Eames: The Architect & The Painter Page #3

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FRANCO:
It was a career

that defined

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what it means to be a designer.

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And it all began with a chair.

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MAN:
Charles, where did the

classic Eames chair come from?

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Did it come to you

in a flash,

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as you were shaving

one morning?

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It sort of came to me

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in a 30-year flash,

if you want.

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FRANCO:
iTIME/i magazine called it

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"the greatest design

ofthe 20th century."

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But it didn't start out

that way.

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It began as a failure.

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Responding to a competition

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at the museum of modern art

in 1940,

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two unknown young architects...

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Charles Eames and his friend,

Eero Saarinen,

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set out to reinvent

the very idea of the chair.

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MAN:
The goal is to create

an inexpensive,

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mass-produced chair

which is well designed,

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and which is molded to the body,

because it doesn't need a lot

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of upholstery, which is,

"a," old-fashioned,

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and "b," expensive.

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Upholstery is what

Louis XIV did.

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FRANCO:
Working at the Cranbrook

Academy of Art near Detroit,

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Eames and Saarinen thought they

could mold

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the new miracle material,

plywood,

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into two directions at once

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to make a comfortable,

form-fitting shell.

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WOMAN:
The critical point

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is where that back

becomes the seat.

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ALBRECHT:
The glues aren't good

enough, and the chair splinters,

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which means,

when you'd sit on it,

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it would be a little

uncomfortable.

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So they have to upholster it.

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FRANCO:
Despite failing

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at their goal of creating

a single-piece plywood shell,

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