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Bobby Fischer dragged one of the building’s Eames chairs to Iceland!
What happened was that the company commissioned Charles and Ray Eames to design the reception rooms for TIME in the new building, and their work included a Charles Eames chair. When editors moved into the space, the lore goes that they decided the chairs were so nice that they wanted to keep the chairs themselves rather than let random people sit in them. Some top staffers were notorious for hoarding them and moving them whenever they switched offices. But it wasn’t just the staff. Bobby Fischer somehow took a liking to the seat, deciding it was perfect for chess-playing. When he took on Boris Spassky in Iceland in 1972, it was while sitting on an Eames TIME-LIFE chair that he’d had brought over for the occasion.
Bobby Fischer of the U.S. right, and Boris Spassky of Russia, play their last game together in Reykjavik, Iceland, in this Aug. 31, 1972
Courtesy: AP Photo/J. Walter Green
Courtesy: AP Photo/J. Walter Green
