SEATING AND BELIEVING

The famous Eames chair and a cluster of cushy couches

WHEN it comes to the Eames Shell Chair, comfort and aesthetics compete for equal time. Originally created for the 1948 International Competition for Low-Cost Furniture Design, a contest sponsored by the Museum of Modern Art in a response to the urgent post-war need for low-cost housing and furniture, the chair was revolutionary in its design.

Charles and Ray Eames had a strong ethos and goal to make “the best for the most for the least”, so this competition was the perfect platform for the pair. The resulting shell chair is perhaps, of all their iconic designs, the item that came closest to realising this goal.

The shell chair was first produced in 1950, and was designed to have several iterations. It was made out of fibreglass in a variety of colours and with various bases, such as the “Eiffel Tower” metal base, the famous wooden base, a four-legged base and a rocker base. The original plastic fibreglass armchair was included in the MoMA collection and remains one of the Eames’s most famous designs.

But you’d be mistaken if you think this chair is simply a stylish addition to your dining room. Its revolutionary design was recognised internationally and was soon used in schools, airports, restaurants and offices around the world. From 1954, the chairs were even used as stadium seating, held together in rows by metal rods known as tandem shell seating.

The chairs are still manufactured and distributed today by Herman Miller in North America and Vitra in Europe. However, fibreglass was abandoned in the ’90s for ecological reasons, and the chair is now produced using an eco-friendly polypropylene.

Almost 70 years since its inception, this chair remains a go-to product for interior designers, and its deceptively simple shape continues to grace the pages of design publications across the world.