Designer:Charles Eames & Ray Eames 
Year:1948.

CHARLES and RAY EAMES were the dream couple of American design and are perhaps its greatest exponents. They were not only successful photographers, film makers and architects but also talented furniture designers.
CHARLES EAMES was born in 1907 in St. Louis, Missouri. After attending Washington University for two years and being thrown out for his advocacy of Frank Lloyd Wright, he began working in an architectural office. In 1930, Charles started his own architectural office. He began extending his design ideas beyond architecture and received a fellowship to Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, where he eventually became head of the design department.
RAY KAISER EAMES was born in Sacramento, California in 1912. She studied painting with Hans Hofmann in New York before moving on to Cranbrook Academy where she met and assisted Charles and Eero Saarinen.
Charles and Ray married in 1941 and moved to California where they continued their furniture design work with molding plywood. Charles’s first moulded plywood chair, designed in collaboration with Eero Saarinen for the Museum of Modern Art’s ‘Organic Design in Home Furnishings’ competition in 1940, was an instant success. The LCW (Lounge Chair Wood), with its rounded forms, is an example of the shift away from the angular Bauhaus style towards a functionalism that was tempered by more organic elements.
During the war they were commissioned by the Navy to produce molded plywood splints, stretchers and experimental glider shells. In 1946, Evans Products began producing the EAMESes' molded plywood furniture. Their molded plywood chair was called "the chair of the century" by the influential architectural critic Esther McCoy. Soon production was taken over by Herman Miller, Inc ., who continues to produce the furniture in the United States today. Vitra manufactures the furniture in Europe. In 1949, Charles and Ray designed and built their own home in Pacific Palisades, California as part of the Case Study House Program sponsored by Arts and Architecture Magazine. Their design and innovative use of materials made this house a mecca for architects and designers from all over the world. It is considered one of the most important post-war residences built anywhere in the world.
Over a period of forty prolific years they produced shelving systems, stackable chairs, folding sofas and multi purpose furniture as well as the iconic Lounge Chair and Ottoman, Aluminium Group Chair collection and Hang It All Coat Rack – all still manufactured as authorized originals under licence by Vitra. These are all noteworthy for their versatility and technological finesse.
The couple were to find themselves at the centre of an intellectual circle that was to redefine American design. Indeed, their work was so significant, that the Museum of Modern Art devoted a special exhibition to Charles EAMES in 1946. Ray’s contribution was for a long time ignored, as was her artistic career, which had its roots in the bohemian world of New York’s immigrants.
Charles died in St. Louis in 1978 and Ray survived him until her death in Sacramento, California in 1988.

Herman Miller 公司始于1923年，从一家生产传统家具的公司演变形成美国现代家具设计与生产中心。它是美国最主要的家具与室内设计厂商之一。这家公司因其老板赫曼．米勒(Herman Miller) 而得名。Herman Miller 公司认为设计是企业经济的一个有机组成部分，并与世界著名的设计师合作，拥有自己的设计师队伍。其中Gilbert Rohde, George Nelson, Charles & Ray Eames, Alexander Girard, Isamu Noguchi, 就是Herman Miller公司的设计先驱，他们使得Herman Miler 改变传统的家具设计路径。而在20世纪60年代，经过8年的研究，Robert Dropst(罗伯特．普罗佩斯特)创立世界第一个开放式的办公家具系统"行动式办公室"（"Action Office"）。也就是今天被广泛采用的开放式办公屏风系统。1976年Herman Miller 生产出Ergon椅子，将人体工程学运用到办公椅子的设计中;1984年，Equa椅子进一步将人体工学应用到办公椅子设计里；1994年，Herman Miller 在椅子设计得到一个新的突破---革新地设计出Aeron 网椅，并获得了欧洲家具工业研究协会（FIRA）颁发的人体工程学优秀奖，该奖是欧洲人类环境改造学的最高奖项。现在，这张Aeron椅子作为永久展品陈列在纽约现代艺术博物馆中。在世纪转换之时，Herman Miller 的全球研究、设计队伍开发出Resolve 系统屏风，它利用几何学的原理，创造出宽敞舒适的工作环境，光线渗透性强，颜色协调，充满了生动的气氛，令工作环境，休息场所更加富于乐趣。我们相信Resolve 会给我们的用户带来更舒适的享受，支持着新型工作人员和新型的工作。而且，Resolve 也和Aeron一样,作为永久展品陈列在纽约现代艺术博物馆中。