Charles Eames, avant garde designer and filmmaker, has been appointed the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry for next year. Eames will deliver a series of multi-media lecture demonstrations relating to visual communications and the visual environment.

While at Harvard. Eames will be affiliated with the Carpenter Center, Edward F. Sekler, Director of the Center, said yesterday. "Eames will be a most welcome addition to what our department has to offer. I believe that his demonstrations will be a departure in format from previous Norton Lecture Series."

In the past the professorship has been held by such men as T. S. Eliot, Igor Stravinsky, Ben Shahn. Sir Herbert Read. R. Buckminster Fuller, and Pier Luigi Nervi. This year the chair is held by Lionel Trilling, the noted critie.

Sekler also said that Eames is tentatively planning to hold a seminar for students interested in following up ideas presented in the lectures.

An exhibition of photographs selected by Eames in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institute will be on display at the Carpenter Center from March. 6 until March 29. The exhibit, titled "Photography and the City," attempts to depict the changing form and nature of cities.

Eames has taught design and served as a consultant at the University of California, Yale University, California Institute of Technology, Cranbrook Academy, and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Some of Eames' award winning films include "Blacktop and Parade" (1950), "A Communication Primer" (1953), "House" (1955), "Toccata for Toy Trains" (1957), "Math Peep Shows" (1961), and "Think" (multi-screen 1964).