Eames Plastic Armchair DAR

For their furniture designs the American designers Charles and Ray Eames both established new manufacturing processes and also led the way in using new materials - developments and innovation that can be seen in the Vitra Eames DAR. While today an accepted standard, at their launch the Eames Plastic Chair family were still a real novelty. Created in context of the 1948 "International Competition for Low Cost Furniture" at MoMA, New York the Eames Plastic Chair family represented the culmination of a very particular design goal: the creation of a one-piece, anatomically shaped seat shell. The ultimate success of the project was thanks to a new material in the furniture industry:

fibreglass reinforced polyester resin. In addition to its easy formability and flexibility the new material also had the advantages of presenting a pleasant feel and coming in at a cheaper price. With the plastic chair family Charles and Ray Eames also reached one of their central aims as a furniture designers "The most of the best to the greatest number of people for the least" Today, the Eames DAR, as with all the Eames plastic armchairs and Eames plastic side chairs are made from polypropylene. DAR stands for Dining Height Armchair Rod Base, which refers to a dining room chair with armrests and four-star base made of wire bracing.

Production

The Eames chairs were the first furniture objects to be serially produced from fibreglass reinforced polyester resin. Since 1950s the furniture manufacturer Herman Miller has produced the Eames DAR and the other Eames Plastic Chairs in the USA. In the 1950s Vitra founder Willi Fehlbaum and his wife Erika discovered the Eames chair on a trip to the USA, and subsequently brought the designs to Europe. Until the 1990s Vitra produced the Eames chairs in their original fibreglass version. Then the once so promising material was considered no longer ecologically justifiable. Consequently, in 1999 Vitra switched to producing the Eames Plastic Chairs in recyclable polypropylene. A switch which was also made by Herman Miller in America.

Charles and Ray Eames belong, without doubt, to the ranks of the greatest designers of the 20th century. Sacramento born Ray Kaiser and the St. Louis native Charles Eames first met in 1940 at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, where Charles and Eero Saarinen were preparing their entry for the "Organic Furniture Competition" at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The painting student Ray was assigned to assist: and a year later Charles and Ray married, before relocating to Los Angeles where they established their own design studio.

With the establishment of the so-called Eames Studio, Charles and Ray Eames began with the production of countless furniture design, film, photography, graphic design and exhibition design projects. Characteristic for their furniture design work is an effortlessly easy combination of homeliness, user orientation and aesthetics. Thus, the typical Ray and Charles Eames home environment rejected the sober conservatism of European modernism to allow something more, well, cuddly. Charles Eames died on August 21, 1978, Ray Eames ten years to the day later on 21 August 1988.

Charles and Ray Eames worked at a time of fundamental social and cultural change. Following World War all new spirit of hope, a desire to move on and the a advancement of pop culture altered ideals, morals, politics and consumption. One effect was that in the USA the demand for housing increased immensely, rents rose and so the average American living room shrunk. And as such had to become more flexible. The European functionalism as represented by architects and designers such as Arne Jacobsen or Alvar Aalto crossed the Atlantic where it found its way into the Eames' work. With the DAR and the other Eames chairs the two designers perfectly met the spirit of the times. The chair design was suitable for multi-functional applications, was mass producible and therefore relatively affordable. In the years after their launch the Eames Plastic Chairs quickly became a common sight in a wide range of situations, only with the temporary production stop in the 1990s and the associated lack of supply, did they became the coveted design classics that they are today.

Originally produced in the United States by Herman Miller, the Eames furniture designs were brought to Europe by the Swiss company Vitra. Company founders Willi and Erika Fehlbaum personally discovered the Eames Chairs during a trip to the USA in 1953. After negotiations with Herman Miller, Vitra acquired in 1957 the license for the Eames DAR and all other Eames furniture, and remain today the only authorised manufacturer of the entire designs of Charles and Ray Eames in Europe and Asia. In addition to the business interest the Fehlbaum's always had a close personal relationship with Charles and Ray Eames; the intensity of which can be understood by the fact that following Ray Eames' death Vitra took possession of the Eames archive - and not about Herman Miller or Eames family. Vitra is however not just Charles and Ray Eames. In addition to design classics by the likes of George Nelson, Isamu Noguchi or Jean Prouvé the company also produce contemporary classics by the likes of Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Alberto Meda or Jasper Morrison. In addition, Vitra the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein, a unique oasis for progressive architecture and design ideas.