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Design is a Chair, A Deck of Cards, A Computer

EAMES' discoveries overlap the realms of science and art. Even he can only describe one in terms of the other.

"Science is essentially an artistic or philosophical enterprise-carried on for its own sake. In this-it is more akin to play than to work. But it is quite a sophisticated play in which the scientist views nature as a system of interlocking puzzles. He assumes that the puzzles have a solution, that they will be fair. He holds to a faith in the underlying order of the universe. His motivation is his fascination with the puzzle itself-his method a curious interplay between idea and experiment.

from "House of Science," a film introduction to the Seattle World Fair Science Exhibition, 1962

The integration of the arts and sciences is also evidenced in Eames' exhibits. The Seattle exhibit of '62 was a multi-image, partially animated view of science and its development. In 1965 Eames prepared a memorial exhibit of Nehru, his life and his India (including the problems in technology). And early this November he will provide IBM with a display explanation of the development of the computer.

He changes even a pack of cards into a design problem; his House of Cards Picture Deck is made up of beautifully patterned photos that have slits so that one can build a house of herbs and spices, spools of thread, Victorian English pill boxes or Chinese baby firecrackers. With his newest deck, the Computer House of Cards, one can build keyboards on resistors and capacitors or make flow charts of transistor heat sinks and wire-wrapped pin connections.

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Charles and Ray Eames restore order to their world with their problem solving. "It is in preparing the problem for solution, in the necessary steps of simplification that we often gain the richest rewards."

"Think," IBM exhibit at New York World Fair, 1965

Visiting with Charles Eames projects multi-images rather than words; he defies labeling. Eames is the designer and architect, the artist and film-maker, the scientist and philosopher. Perhaps the connection is his gift as problem-solver-whether it's in designing a computer exhibit for New York's IBM building or in joining a metal support to the back of a chair.

Eames (along with his wife and 30-member Office) is a contemporary Bauhaus. To the architect, Eames' self-designed Santa Monica home is as important a landmark as any Gropius house. The Eames Lounge Chair holds its position in design as well as Miles van der Rohe's Barcelona Chair. He has integrated the plastic arts with crafts and industry as the Bauhaus did, and what pedestal there was for art to stand on, Eames has replaced with the "everyman's" chair. The Bauhaus was a school; Eames is an educator.

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