Why the Eames chair is still an undoubted design classic

A Barbican exhibition celebrates four decades of iconic design by Charles and Ray Eames. Amira Hashish tries out the vintage styles

The Eames chair is still a design classic (Rex Features)

The World of Charles and Ray Eames, a new exhibition at the Barbican, shines a light on the design pioneers. The work of the Eames Office, active for more than four decades, is showcased through architecture, furniture, film and sculpture.

The formidable couple are best known for their iconic chairs, constructed using a wide variety of tools and media. “For Charles and Ray, design was not simply a professional skill, it was a life skill – more than that, it was an essential attribute of life itself,” says Eames Demetrios, director of the Eames Office.

“And not pretentiously. On the contrary, they never stopped challenging themselves to make their most iconic designs better and better – all the while having fun. The unprecedented array of objects and stories at the Barbican is not simply for admiration but inspiration to folks in myriad fields.”

Praised for their collaborations with leading artistic figures of the 20th century, the immediate Eames circle included Buckminster Fuller, Alexander Girard, Sister Corita Kent, George Nelson, Isamu Noguchi, Eero Saarinen, Saul Steinberg and Billy Wilder.

The exhibition includes material which highlights the importance of these relationships to the Eames’ life, philosophy and working processes. It is a chance to see the celebrated designers in the context of their network alongside the political, cultural and social conditions which enabled and influenced their pieces.

The exhibition also addresses the Eames’ impact on 20th-century concepts of modern living. Their editorial ‘‘eye’’ and mastery of form are still relevant today.

To accompany the show the Barbican has created products, including bags and tea towels, based on classic Eames textile patterns. Plus, the Eames Office has opened its archive to make vintage materials based on designs by Charles and Ray available to purchase, some of them for the very first time.