The Vitra Design Museums opened "Schaudepot"

The Vitra Design Museum has just opened a new building, "Schaudepot", opposite Zaha Hadid’s Vitra Fire Station on the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein, Germany. 

The ground-floor gallery showcases the first permanent display chosen from the museum’s vast furniture collection, including rarely seen works by Charles and Ray Eames, along with recent acquisitions like Dutch designer Joris Laarman’s 3D-printed aluminum Gradient Chair and Mali designer Cheick Diallo’s Ségou Rocker.
In the basement, hundreds more furnishings and accessories are visible through glass walls, including sculptures and prototypes from the Eames estate, and classic lamps by Alvar Aalto, among others.
“You get a glimpse of what there is,” said Mateo Kries, the museum’s director. “You see that it goes on and on and on.”

See: http://www.design-museum.de/en/collection/the-schaudepot.html

Happy 75th wedding anniversary to Charles and Ray

This is the Charles Eames Marriage Proposal to Ray:

Dear Miss Kaiser,

I am 34 (almost) years old, singel (again) and broke. 

I love you very much and would like to marry you very very soon.* 

I cannot promise to support us very well. — but if given the chance I’ll shure in hell try –

*soon means very soon.

What is the size of this finger??

as soon as I get to that hospital I will write “neams” well little ones.
love xxxxxxxxxx
Charlie

Amazon celebrates Charles Eames birthday (June 17) with pinboard of knockoffs

Charles Eames would have been 109 today. He was born on June 17, 1907, and died on 21 August, 1978.

Online retail giant Amazon is celebrating the birthday of Charles Eames with a pinboard that collects together replicas of his designs sold on the site.
Amazon's roundup – titled Happy Birthday Charles Eames – is part of its Pinterest-style Beautiful Things stream, which features groupings of products curated by Amazon's product team.
Clicking on the minimal square images on the pinboard takes visitors through to Amazon's sales pages for products including replicas of the Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman, Molded Plastic Chairs and Hang it all coat rack.
The replica designs are being sold for between £ 30 and £ 350 ($ 45 and $ 499), well below the prices for authorised versions.
For example, the Eames Lounge Chair – an iconic design with black leather upholstery and a bent plywood seat, backrest and arms – is advertised on Amazon's board for £ 350 ($ 499).
An official version produced by Vitra - which is authorised to make and sell Eames products in Europe and the Middle East - is currently for sale online via British retailer John Lewis for between £ 3.900 and £ 5.050.
Herman Miller, which holds the US licence for Eames products, offers the same chair together with its matching ottoman for $ 4.935.
Also included in the Amazon collection are original items like Taschen's Eames coffee table book and a DVD collection of the Eames' pioneering short films.

Courtesy: www.dezeen.com

Should Eames' Design Classics Be Copied?

The Aldi chair is a steal (perhaps too literally).

If you can't afford the real deal, is it ever okay to buy a "replica" of something?
Aldi, the Germany-based discount supermarket chain, is in a little hot water for selling a molded plastic chair that looks very much like the iconic Eames chair. The Eiffel Chair, as Aldi is calling them, is being sold online (currently sold out) as a pair for just £39.99, or approximately $58. That is a steal (perhaps even literally?) compared to the $438 base price of the DSW Molded Plastic Dowel-Leg Side Chair Charles and Ray Eames designed for Herman Miller in 1950, available for purchase at Design Within Reach.
The similarity between the two designs was first called out on Twitter by furniture designer Rupert Blanchard, but Aldi responded to Dezeen saying that their chairs do not infringe on any design rights.
The Guardian architecture and design critic Oliver Wainwright defended Aldi, tweeting "[Isn't] this exactly what Charles Eames would have wanted?" He continued, "[The] licensing model that sees Eames designs elevated to luxury collectibles goes utterly against everything they stood for," implying that the designers would have wanted their designs to be available to the masses.
A $60 chair would most likely vary widely in quality and craftsmanship from a $400 chair, and the two versions would most likely be competing for two very different consumers. And legally speaking, according to Dezeen, it is legal for Aldi under current UK law to sell replicas of famous design pieces, as copyright law only covers industrial designs for 25 years after they are first marketed. (New copyright law is set to come into effect this summer, however, which would protect the Eames chair.)
Still, even if it is perfectly legal for Aldi to sell this chair, should it? And would you buy it?

See: https://twitter.com/RupertBlanchard/status/738003920782561280/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Courtesy: curbed.com

The Short Films of Charles and Ray Eames at Metrograph in New York

June 5, 2016: Join Metrograph in New York for a special screening of seven short films by Charles and Ray Eames.

Charles and Ray were prolific filmmakers, making 125 experimental, educational, and just plain entertaining shorts over the course of more than thirty years. This showcase offers a selection of their 35mm films, preserved by the Library of Congress:

_Two Baroque Churches, 11 min., 1955
_Eames Lounge Chair, 2 min., 1956
_Toccata for Toy Trains, 14 min., 1957
_Information Machine, 10 min., 1957
_Day of the Dead, 15 min., 1957
_The Smithsonian Institution, 20 min., 1965
_Powers of Ten, 9 min., 1977

Event Details:
The Short Films of Charles and Ray Eames
Sunday, June 5, 2016 at 1:00 pm
$12.00 – Purchase tickets here.

Metrograph:
No. 7 Ludlow Street
New York NY 10002
212.660.0312