art design essay
Tingting Xu
Intro to design
4/5/2018
Rough draft
“What works good is better than what looks good, because what works good lasts.” said by the famous artist Ray Eames. Ray Eames was Charles Eames’s wife, they were famous designer couples during postmodernism period. Their furnitures won people’s great admiration and compliment at that time period, and they made a revolution of the ideas of design. The post-model period was a important turn of feminist critique of design here, the current tendency to question dominant value systems and interpretations of history indicates a loss of faith inn the single unitary view, which I the case of design history has always placed it I the male domain.[footnoteRef:1] They were husband-and-wife team who defined the design was for living, and their futures are sophisticated and simple, beautifully but functional. Ray Eames always attend with her husband name as a work-team. But did Ray enjoyed playing the role of Charles’s wife? The design object chose is The Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman, which was a signature design of their collection. There was a gender unequal problem between Charles and Ray Eames, and pick the Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman as a guide to explore this husband- wife team deeply and carefully. [1: Judy Attfield, Feminist Critiques of design (Design Studies A Reader,2009), 49]
The Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman was made in 1956, and sold by Herman Miller company. The company used the Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman to admired that Arlene Francis introduced it to a national audience on primetime TV on her home show. It was the first and only chip to achieve such a platform.[footnoteRef:2] There are two parts of the design, one is the main chair, and the other one is ottoman. The idea of the two pieces of design was inspired by English club chair.[footnoteRef:3] The outlook is very attractive people to relax on it, because the black letter looks comfortable and relaxation. The shape of the chair is relaxing too, its little bit wired to use relaxing to describe a shape. But the slope of the chair looks like could fit with anybody’s body line and adjust a perfect angel for each person. The most amazing part is the ottoman, it is a totally new design with chair at that time period. And there is a removable rubber slide on feet with metal glides, also the chair has too. The whole piece use black leather, including the handle parts of chair. And the chair use of a heavy rubber washer glued to the backrest of the chair and screwed to the lumbar support. The purpose of this is for more Ergonomics. [2: Marlow Hoffman, "12 THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT THE EAMES LOUNGE CHAIR & OTTOMAN,”accessed December 30, 2016, http://www.eamesoffice.com/blog/12-things-you-dont-know-eames-lounge-chair-and-ottoman/] [3: Drexler, Arthur. “Charles Eames: furniture from the design collection, the museum of modern art, New York,” Journal of the the museum of modern art, New York, April, 1973.]
The remarkable revolution is they made use of the new materials, which is plywood. In the early of 1990, the plywood was made by the Brazilian rouse wood.[footnoteRef:4] They spent many years to produce a three dimensionally moulded plywood seat shells that could followed the humans body.[footnoteRef:5] Finally, they produced a more organic shape materials for their furnitures design. The plywood is very light and flexible. And also their plywood materials had a critical role for U.S. Navy and the military aviation industry. [4: Drexler, Arthur. “Charles Eames: furniture from the design collection, the museum of modern art, New York,” Journal of the the museum of modern art, New York, April, 1973.] [5: “Plywood Group,”Vitra, https://www.vitra.com/en-gb/product/plywood-group]
Now, lets talk about the gender equity problem that occur with that couple. There are secondary sources indicated that the initial company of Charles and Ray Eames was running by Charles and Ray Eames. But Charles took all credit of company’s effort. Because of the sexism of the time, Ray, who was an equal business parter and also had big contributed to the design and art was being marginalized and intangibly. There were lots of situation that show the sexism, the businessmen only wanted to talk to Charles, to Charles ad Ray. Also the TV show I mentioned before, the host categorized Ray as a characterized as the women who supporting her husband. however, Ray is a artist and who has contributed in their design. We can’t identified Charles’s real attitude of this gender equity problem, maybe he was also a man of that times and believing the sole creative force.
The interview parts to show the deeply relationship
Gender equity is a critical issue that women had been fight for a long time until now, and lots of female artist was marginalized because of sexism. Charles and Ray Eames is a famous signature couples that in the design history, Charles respect his wife and put her name as a team. This sounds like a touch story, but a female artist have to be respect by the publics. Gender is not a problem in front of art. We know that Ray want to design a single work sometimes, but the society didn’t accept her. It was a cruel for a artist. We could familiars with Ray’s name, but how many female artist we lose to recognized during this interminable history. They had covered by
old Social secularization, and could’t print their names with their works. It seems like a tolerant plunder which recognized by all publics. All the gender unequal issue should disappear for create a better world. Born as a human, be sure we are not sent into the world to air our moral prejudices.