Core77 launches a new biweekly column about 20th-century female industrial designers

Last wednesday (may, 27) Core77 launched a new biweekly column - but, first, a pop quiz for our readers: without resorting to Google, how many 20th-century female industrial designers can you name? We'll give you a moment to make your mental lists. How did you do? We're hoping that most of our readers had no trouble thinking of Ray Eames, Florence Knoll, Eileen Gray, Charlotte Perriand, Eva Zeisel and perhaps a few others. But we're guessing that very few of you came up with more than six or seven names total. Not that we did a lot better ourselves—the unfortunate truth is that women designers' contributions to the field just haven't gotten much exposure and celebration over the years.
Which brings us back to our new column. Starting today, we'll be publishing a series of profiles of great 20th-century female designers by Los Angeles–based contributor Rebecca Veit. We're kicking off the series with two posts—on the pioneering Bauhaus metalworker Marianne Brandt and the American ID entrepreneur Belle Kogan—and we'll be adding a new profile every other Tuesday.
With this series—which we're somewhat cheekily calling Designing Women—we will be focusing on industrial design, but we'll also be delving into interiors, textiles, architecture, graphics and related disciplines. We'll be featuring solo designers as well as some design collaborations where men (naturally) took most of the credit for the work. (For an example of this dynamic in action, watch this painful 1956 television interview with Charles and Ray Eames; take a drink every time the host gives Charles sole credit for a design, and take two drinks every time she describes Ray as being "behind the man.").
So please keep an eye on the Designing Women channel, and, as always, let us know what you think.

Courtesy: core77.com

Read all at: www.core77.com/posts/37039/Introducing-Our-New-Series-on-Great-Female-Designers-of-the-20th-Century

Rhodri Marsden's Interesting Objects: The Mastermind chair

Forty-three years ago, the Radio Times alerted us to the first screening of a "new and exciting brain game" called Mastermind.
As that first episode from Liverpool University was broadcast, it became clear that the star of the show was neither the winning contestant (or in Mastermind-speak, Contender) nor Magnus Magnusson, the original quizmaster (or Interrogator) but rather the black leather chair the Contenders were required to sit in.
The 'Soft Pad Lounge Chair' was designed in 1969 by Charles and Ray Eames as a more plushly upholstered version of their 1958 Aluminium Group. Two chairs were purchased for use in the initial 25-year run of the show, transported across the country by lorry. Said chairs are, according to one website that one sincerely hopes is trustworthy, specially modified with detachable arms "in case a Contender is too large to fit between them".
Such was the impact of the chair on popular culture that in 2009 it gained the indescribable honour of being voted the second-most iconic chair of the 20th century in a survey for House Beautiful magazine, losing out to the Model 3107 chair designed by Arne Jacobsen, astride which Christine Keeler famously sat.
In 1979, a chair was held to ransom by students of the University of Ulster, who demanded £50 for their Cambodia Relief Fund.They sheepishly returned it without any money changing hands.
The chair, described by former Celebrity Mastermind contestant Stuart Maconie as "elegant, refined, terrifying", possessed enough menace for Magnusson to refuse invitations to sit in it, but when the original run ended in 1997, he was given one as a souvenir.

Rhodri Marsden via independent.co.uk

read all at: www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/rhodri-marsdens-interesting-objects-the-mastermind-chair-9709474.html

Eamesian mood: Overgaard & Dyrman launched Wire Collection

Danish furniture maker Overgaard & Dyrman have launched a film showing the passion and craftsmanship behind their recently launched Wire Collection. The creation of fixtures and custom made tools has become a significant part of the identity of Overgaard & Dyrman. A special made fixture makes it possible for a highly skilled welder to do all welding by hand. This also applies to the creation of the ‘saddles’ for the wire chairs. Here, thick full-grain tooling leather is combined with a layer of foam and soft leather, as it has been done for generations within saddle making. In this way a construction that meets structural, ergonomic and visual desires has been made.

Courtesy: yellowtrace.com.au

Read all at: http://www.yellowtrace.com.au/the-passion-of-making-by-overgaard-dyrman/

Good design is a human right: Eames and Saarinen pioneers of it

Christian Narkiewicz-Laine, Museum President of The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design, has declared that good design is a human right whilst commemorating the 65th anniversary of the founding of Good Design in Chicago during a lecture in Munich, Germany.

Pointing out that ‘the human right to good design’ coexists with other fundamental human rights, including the right to liberty, law, education, healthcare and expression, Narkiewicz-Laine adds that the right to the “best and most intelligent” design is also the driver that defines and embodies many of the universally-recognised and accepted rights.

The idea that beautiful and functional everyday objects should not only be affordable to the wealthy, but to all, is a core theme in the development of modernism and functionalism. This is probably most completely realised in post-WWII Scandinavian design. The ideological background was the emergence of a particular Scandinavian form of social democracy in the 1950s, as well as the increased availability of new low-cost materials and methods for mass production. In Scandinavia, Good Design often makes use of form-pressed wood, plastics, anodized or enamelled aluminium or pressed steel.
That idea developed in the United States in the works of Charles and Ray Eames and Eero Saarinen, and formed the philosophical basis for their Good Design program in 1950 by introducing good and democratic objects that could be easily mass-produced for the public masses.

22 May, 2015 - Geraldine Chua 

Courtesy: architectureanddesign.com.au

Read all at: http://www.architectureanddesign.com.au/news/good-design-is-a-human-right

News: Eames-style Nolan side table from West Elm

For a contemporary, high street take on a mid-century look, check out the Nolan side table from West Elm. The table is similar in shape to the 1960 Charles and Ray Eames stool designs - those objects, like this, offering the possibility of being either a side table or a stool.
The Nolan has been given a luxurious look, with an antiqued brass finish, rather than the solid wood of the Eames' numbers.

Courtesy: retrotogo.com

News: Atrium Musem at Vitoria-Gasteiz (Spain): artist Mabi Revuelta quotes Eameses

Unbreakable Toys looks back at the last seven years of Mabi Revuelta’s artistic research, which is structured around three main themes: language, play and art education. This exploration stems from the book Abeceda (‘alphabet’ in Czech), published in Prague in 1926, a collaborative piece between the writer Vítezslav Nezval, the artist and designer Karel Teige and the dancer and choreographer Milca Mayerová. These forerunners of the Czechoslovak Avant-garde imagined a (playful) alphabet for modern life, their intention being to lay the foundations for a new language, a school spelling book which, through poetry, design and dance, would help to build a new world after the disasters of the First World War.
Almost a hundred years on, the artist has developed an alphabet of her own, based on Nezval’s poems, Teige’s designs and Mayerová’s static poses, enabling her to consider in various series of works questions such as the structure of graphic signs (the design, shape and size of letters) or the expressive search through semantics, anti-semantics and the magnetic aura of words. Divertimentos tipográficos (2010; Typographic Diversions) is the first piece in the exhibition and also the starting point for her new works, which attempt to expand the book and school teachings into the realms of games as constructional elements and of toys—by extension artefacts—as tools for cultural development.
The central space in the room is occupied by Geómetra (2015; Geometrician), a huge house of cards constructed using 164 pieces based on the "House of Cards" (1952) game created by Charles and Ray Eames. In their work, the Eameses followed the principles of the Bauhaus and, as a result, they did not confine themselves to designing and manufacturing objects in accordance with the principles of function and form, but also understood the educational importance of schooling and paid special attention to educational games and toys. For these designers, the beauty of toys lies in the fact that they exist for pure pleasure. In addition to containing hidden poetry and teachings, toys and games are a prelude to serious ideas.
Just as the Eameses did in their day, Mabi Revuelta incorporates into these cards images, designs and digital collages in which everyday objects become extraordinary. The photographic reconstruction of the maze in The Shining, directed by Stanley Kubrick, made using Lego pieces, a study of a fragment that broke off from a ceiling in the Alhambra, drawings of networks generated using the golden ratio and compositions of snow crystals in free fall gradually accumulate in a construction verging on instability and built in the form of towers and levels. The work is an unfinished constellation, as there is the potential for increasing the number of cards or assembling it in countless forms.

Courtesy, Atrium Museum
Read all at: http://www.artium.org/English/Exhibitions/Exhibition/tabid/336/language/en-US/Default.aspx?pidExposicion=277

Before and After: customized Eames chair

This furniture makeover comes from the team at non fiction design collective in columbus, ohio. they’ve taken on a classic and added a modern great spin. a few months ago the team found an original eames chair in a nearby dumpster. it was covered in paint and damaged badly, so they decided to strip it down to the original fiberglass and tile it with hundreds of hand-pressed porcelain buttons. the negative space was then filled with flexible grey grout. it’s definitely a unique look, and not for everyone, but i love the way they they’ve taken a classic design and made it their own (i’d love to use white grout and do a colored tile that makes a nice ombre effect).

Courtesy: Design Sponge
Read all at: http://www.designsponge.com/2008/10/before-and-after-3.html

News: “Essential Eames: Icons of 20th Century Design” at Bangkok

Charles and Ray Eames are credited with “changing the way we sit” by the The Washington Post. A closer look at the Eames’ philosophy and work demonstrates they did much more, leaving an indelible mark on contemporary lifestyle and revolutionizing furniture construction and design.
“Essential Eames: Icons of 20th Century Design” is currently showing at the Thailand Creative Design Center (TCDC) in Bangkok, Thailand. Based on the book An Eames Primer by Eames Demetrios, the couple’s grandson, this exhibition is not to be missed.
“Essential Eames” does a remarkable job charting the endeavours of an intellectually adventurous couple who never tired of exploration and creation. With over 90 pieces of furniture and 125 original film and photographs on display, the exhibition covers architecture, furniture, design, film, toys and philosophy in various interactive zones.

May 13, 2015, by Rachna Sachasinh
Courtesy The Myanmar Times

Read all at: http://www.mmtimes.com/index.php/lifestyle/14439-bangkok-exhibition-showcases-20th-century-design-icons.html

News: eamesian mood at Ikea !

News: America’s Blueprint. Words and pictures for your parents’ Constitution.

/.../ In explaining the process of design to an audience at Harvard, Charles Eames once resorted to parable. In India, he explained, people of the lowest caste would eat off banana leaves. People a bit higher up the social scale would eat off a ceramic dish whose shape was inspired by the banana leaf. Moving even farther up the social scale, these dishes—talis—might be elegantly glazed or made of fine bronze. “I suppose some nut has a gold tali that he’s eaten off of,” Eames speculated, “but I’ve never seen one.” Eventually, though, people lacking in neither means nor knowledge chose to abandon the elaborate talifor the simple, uncomplicated, and functional banana leaf. In many respects, this return to the basic elements of design lies at the heart of this reissue of Bruce and Esther Findlay’s Your Rugged Constitution /.../

May 08, 2015, by Tara Helfman

Courtesy: weeklystandard.com

Read all at: www.weeklystandard.com/articles/america-s-blueprint_941046.html

News: Federico Babina imagines Eameses as movie directors in a imaginative Noir-Inspired Movie Posters

If you care about the Charles and Ray Eames more than the "Brangelinas" (Brad Pitt + Angelina Jolie), Barcelona-based illustrator Federico Babina's latest movie poster series caters to your design snobbery.

To explore how design creates atmosphere and mood in interior spaces, Babina has imagined 28 legendary furniture designers as directors of noir-ish films. Dubbed Archidesign, his poster series features stylized illustrations of their famous chairs, lamps, and tables. It casts pieces of furniture as more than background props—they’re characters themselves.

may 07, 2015

Courtesy fastcodesign.com

Read all at: http://www.fastcodesign.com/3045959/wanted/famous-furniture-designs-star-in-these-noir-inspired-movie-posters#1

News: Eamesian mood in office space in Zagreb skyscraper

The top two floors of the Zagreb, Croatia’s oldest skyscraper has been redesigned by brigada spatial design agency. the history and origin of the building — mid-50’s construction — influenced the renovations, which were undertaken with a distinct 1950’s aesthetic. the 550 square meter office space is both contemporary and retro, subtly alluding to the look and lifestyle of the structure’s roots. 

Special pieces of furniture were created by brigada using american walnut veneer. the rest of the office is furnished with classic 50’s and 60’s designs including pieces by charles and ray eames, pollock, finn juhl, and herman miller. each detail was carefully thought out, and extends as far as the integration of functional items from the period such as TV sets, radios, vintage tables and chairs, telephones, stand fans, coat racks and hangers, shelving, ash trays, and other novelty gadgets.

may 03, 2015

courtesy:  designboom.com

read all at: http://www.designboom.com/design/brigada-office-space-zagreb-skyscraper-05-03-2015/

About Daniel Ostroff's new volume, An Eames Anthology, again

It was a vintage Eames thought experiment, part user-centered design, part wonder and delight. When Ray and Charles Eames were commissioned to build a National Aquarium in Washington, D.C., they quickly arranged for first-person research. To deliver on the visceral thrill of seeing different species up close, the couple built aquariums in their L.A. offices so they could observe fish and underwater creatures in person. While the National Fisheries Center and Aquarium was sacked due to Nixon-era budget cuts, the research project did inspire Charles Eames to write that "there's a lot of gee-whiz factor built into an octopus." These kind of off-hand remarks and revealing correspondences, as well as a wealth of project details and unknown facts, make up Daniel Ostroff's insightful new volume, An Eames Anthology (Yale University Press). A noted film producer, design historian and scholar of the famous couple, Ostroff spent years studying their archives to deliver a comprehensive and personal look at their work that presents the Eames in their own words. We spoke to Ostroff about some of his more interesting finds, and compiled a list curiosities that showcase the range of this remarkable couple.

Excerpt from:

"5 Things You Didn't Know About Ray and Charles Eames"

by Patrick Sisson

Tuesday, April 28, 2015, 

Courtesy Curbed.com

See all at: http://curbed.com/archives/2015/04/28/things-you-didnt-know-about-ray-and-charles-eames.php