SIGHTSEERS
The World's Most Loved Chair
by Randy Karr

The Eames Lounge Chair, the Cadillac of all chairs, is on exhibit at The Henry Ford, "America's Greatest History Attraction". The exhibit runs now through April 29.

The Eames Lounge Chair: An Icon of Modern Design exhibit celebrates the 50th anniversary of a chair that was admired around the world. Among the renowned who treasured their Eames lounge chair and ottoman is Academy Award-winning director Billy Wilder, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, French President Francois Mitterrand, and British playwright Tom Stoppard.

So did the Frasier Crane character on the hit TV series, "Frasier".

The Eames lounge chair was featured in the show's first and last episodes. In the first episode, Frasier's father is seen moving a worn but comfortable recliner into his son's tastefully decorated apartment, displacing Frasier's more aesthetically pleasing Eames and disrupting his highly tuned sense of decorum.

When the battered recliner is hauled away in the final episode, Frasier's sense of aesthetic is restored, as his prized Eames lounge chair returns to the living room as the culminating piece. Frasier's father then sits in the Eames chair, as he did 11 years previous, but only now declares that it isn't so uncomfortable, after all.

While sitting in a $3200 Eames lounge chair, visitors can view the ratty recliner, used by the Martin Crane character, and watch scenes from the Frasier TV show, using this chair as a prop.

The Eames lounge chair, as well as over 30 other products, all designed by Charles and Ray Eames, are examples of exactly what Henry Ford had in mind when he built the Henry Ford Museum - great American innovation.

And innovate is what Charles and his wife, Ray, did. They worked very hard at their craft, said Marc Gruether, curator for the Eames exhibit. "They had a lot in common with Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, in that regard."

Having met at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, MI, Charles, an architect, and Ray, an artist, teamed up to design a chair that Time magazine later called the "design of the century." Because of its classic status, the Eames Lounge Chair is now in New York's Museum of Modern Art, as part of its permanent collection.

Sketches of how Ray envisioned the chair are on view. It took the creative duo three years to produce a prototype that, as Charles put it, would have the "warm, receptive look of a well-worn, first baseman's mitt - with the sitter cushioned much like a baseball in the glove." They gave their first model of this easy-to-sink-into chair to their friend, Academy Award-winning film director, Billy Wilder.

The chair's design required four plywood pieces. To bend and shape the plywood, the Eameses built a molding devise out of a bike pump and 2 X 4s, in their California apartment.

The chair's architecture consisted of a plywood frame molded into multiple compound curves. Both the chairs, and the matching ottoman, were padded with down-filled, Scottish leather cushions. To suggest comfort, the leather was given a wrinkled appearance.

Also on display are examples of molded plywood products created in the 1940s. These include a modernistic plywood sculpture, a toy elephant, a child's chair and a molded plywood splint designed for the Army's use, during World War II.

In 1956, NBC's "Home" show introduced the American public to the Eames Lounge Chair. Visitors to the exhibit can view the show and watch host Arlene Francis interview the Eameses. The show aired at a time when people began replacing bulky furniture with a newer, sleeker look - a look that is still in demand in 2007.

Now celebrating 50 years of non-stop production, The Herman Miller Company, in Zeeland, MI, has produced more than 100,000 of these comfy "made in Michigan" chairs that back in the 50s, sold for about $600. In today's dollars, that would be about $4000.

Interested in an Eames Lounge Chair? You can get your very own for only $3,245, shipping included.

Henry Ford Museum is open seven days a week, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Henry Ford, America's Greatest History Attraction, is the history destination that brings the American experience to life. For more information, please call 313-982-6001 or visit www.thehenryford.org.

© 2007 Randy Karr