Eames Office

Eames Office was established in 1941 by Charles and Ray Eames, who married in Chicago and drove to Los Angeles with no jobs waiting for them. Working first in a guest room of Richard Neutra’s Strathmore Apartments, they built the Kazam! machine, which pressed veneer into compound curves with a bicycle pump and a rubber balloon, and by 1943 they were making plywood splints for the US Medical Corps.

That year the office moved into 901 W. Washington Boulevard in Venice, a 20,000-square-foot workspace where the team developed the LCW in 1946, the Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman, the Eames House and the film Powers of Ten, and consulted for corporations such as IBM. Since Ray’s death in 1988 it has been run by Eames family members and a small staff who preserve the legacy, with Herman Miller and Vitra as the only authorised manufacturers.