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Director of Eames Foundation at INDEX 2011 Photo by Samiha Naaz |
On 24th October 2011 at INDEX 2011 held a unique seminar, called ‘Eames- Why is it timeless?’ by Mr. Eames
Demetrios, the Director of Eames Foundation located in Los Angeles. He talked
about Eames, the office and about the significant product manufactured there.
Chairs- a simple product that we use
every day; it is present in offices, schools, hospitals almost everywhere. It’s
made out of a variety of items such as leather, plastic, metal or wood and much
more. We see it in a furniture shop and
buy it immediately if we like it, but let’s stop to think for a minute as to
who must have thought of that design, or who is the one who made that chair we
just bought.
Eames Foundation is one such company
who has been making chairs for a very long time. Mr. Demetrios started off by
introducing his grandparents Mrs. And Mr. Charles and Ray Eames, famously
called Charles and Ray, the legacy of the Eames Foundation and how the couple
brought about their ideas into existence through furniture designs.
Most of us wouldn’t know, but the
idea of moulding plywood to make a chair was Mr. Charles’s invention, and he
gave a lot of his time to perfect that. The Eames Foundation is involved in a
lot of areas, like architecture, multimedia and film-making; Charles and Ray
have made a lot of films that introduced the method of problem-solving to the
people, “they were very good at making people see the commonality of things”,
said Mr. Demetrios.
The reason why Eames chairs are
considered ‘timeless’ is because once a design was thought; it’s immediately
made into a prototype and then tested by Charles in every possible way to find
any faults, if present. And in every design, Charles and Ray had given their
total attention to detail which still exists at Eames.
The most influential part of the
seminar was the question and answer session where Mr. Demetrios involved the
audience effectively. When asked by one student whether the Eames Office only
continues what Charles and Ray had designed or creates new ideas for furniture,
he said, “The mission statement of Eames Office is to communicate, preserve and
extend what Charles and Ray started, so if there are any new designs or ideas,
they are manufactured outside Eames Office.”
Another student also asked if Mr.
Demetrios was inspired by his grandparents and designed furniture by himself or
not, and he laughed and said, “Well, I mainly design films and do storytelling.
But it is important to know that inspiration is a more of a process, I learned
this from my grandparents that the process of doing something is of value,
whatever may be the outcome, the process of doing it matters.”
Along with industry professionals,
the seminar was also attended by students from the Sharjah English School.
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