Case Study House: Ray+Charles Eames House
The Ray and Charles Eames House
The Ray and Charles Eames House
‘The Eames House (also known as Case Study House No. 8 ), is a landmark of mid-20th century modern architecture. It was constructed in 1949 in Pacific Palisades, California (a suburb of Los Angeles) by husband-and-wife design pioneers Charles and Ray (Kaiser) Eames, to serve as their home and studio. Unusually for such an avant-garde design, the Eames publicized the house as a thoroughly lived-in, usable, and well-loved home. While many icons of the modern movement are depicted as stark, barren spaces devoid of human use, photographs and motion pictures taken at the Eames house reveal a richly decorated, almost cluttered space full of thousands of books, art objects, artifacts, and charming knick-knacks as well as dozens of projects in various states of completion. The Eames’ gracious live-work lifestyle continues to be an influential model.
The design of the house was proposed by Charles and Ray as part of the famous Case Study House program for John Entenza’s Arts and Architecture magazine. The idea of a Case Study house was to hypothesize a modern household, elaborate its functional requirements, have an esteemed architect develop a design that met those requirements using modern materials and construction processes, and then to actually build the home. The houses were documented before, during and after construction for publication in Arts and Architecture. The Eames’ proposal reflected their own household and their own needs; a young married couple wanting a place to live, work and entertain in one undemanding setting in harmony with the site.’ - Wikipedia
This house ruined my definition of what a house should be like. Clean lines. Walls of windows. Art+Architecture. It looks like a painting… seriously, it looks like Piet Mondrian’s Composition with Large Blue Plane.
Stumble it!
February 13th, 2006 at 7:47 am
The house is designed using the de Stijl principles which focused on solid shapes and lines based on primary colours. It was quite a popular style in architecture at the time.
Piet Mondarian was one of many to use this style which only lasted until 1931. It’s odd that most of my Google searches turned up results on Piet’s work since it was a collective movement made of artists, architects and poets. It’s no wonder you think it looks like a painting, the Eames home is clearly a de Stijl inspired project.
I was able to find this link with a listing of other artists that also shared in the neoplasticism movement.
http://www.the-artists.org/MovementView.cfm?id=8A01EE8F%2DBBCF%2D11D4%2DA93500D0B7069B40
It’s been a while since I learned this in school ~18yrs ago, had to revise my post a little based on the definition found on the above link.
October 30th, 2009 at 7:17 am
[…] We’re all familiar with Piet Mondrian’s iconic paintings based on a similar premise. His linear compositions have become a part of American culture, whether as the modular wall on Ray and Charles Eames’ Case Study House No. 8, or the expression of Pop Culture painted by Mick Haggerty in Mickey Mondrian. […]