Mundo California: los Eames, de nuevo / Exposición en el Barbican Gallery, Londres hasta el 14 de febrero, itinerancia a Bildmuseet, Umeå, Sweden 17 Apr–4 Sept 2016; Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT), Lisbon, Portugal, 4 Oct 2016–8 Jan 2017

The World of Charles and Ray Eames, Barbican Art Gallery. Photo Tristan Fewings_Getty Images.

Vía El Cultura, El Mundo.

Hasta el próximo 14 de febrero podemos ver en el Barbican de Londres The World of Charles and Ray Eames, una panorámica sobre la pareja de diseñadores norteamericanos que, más allá de nostalgias, reivindica la vigencia de su legado a través de una ambiciosa mezcla de rigor documentalista y espectáculo audiovisual.

INMA E. MALUENDA / ENRIQUE ENCABO | 22/01/2016 |

En determinado momento, el problema de las retrospectivas comienza a ser uno mismo. La vida da para toparse con cuatro o cinco picassos, dalís o mies definitivos que, bien mirados, nunca impresionan tanto como la primera vez. Quizá sea la ingenuidad (o la ignorancia) atributo imprescindible para la revisión de nuestro bagaje cultural -quejarse de limpieza, lo que hay que oír-. ¿Por qué es, entonces, importante apurar esta exposición sobre Charles y Ray Eames en el Barbican? Si están tan presentes en la cultura popular y son tan conocidos por sus muebles, arquitecturas y películas, ¿no podrían darse por sabidos?

Los Eames, o Ray Kayser (1912-1988) y Charles Eames (1907-1978), encarnan como nadie el momento en el que Estados Unidos desplazó a Europa como centro del mundo, y la arquitectura y el diseño contemporáneos superaban la satisfacción de las necesidades básicas para entregarse a la plenitud consumista. Eames es plural, apellido de pareja. Así los trata la muestra. Enmarcado, vemos uno de los escasos indicios de una vida anterior: una carta en la que el recién divorciado Charles anunciaba a Ray sus planes de matrimonio, zona cero del mito Eames. Con membrete de la Cranbrook Academy of Art (Michigan) y sin fecha -aunque sabemos que corresponde a la primavera del año 1941-, declara: “Tengo (casi) 34 años, estoy soltero (otra vez) y en bancarrota”. En unos meses se mudarían a Los Ángeles para cambiar la historia del diseño y la arquitectura del siglo XX.

Apoyada en una ordenación vagamente cronológica, la exposición es pródiga en fetiches, que se articulan a través de una narrativa tan amable como astuta. Al inicio, podemos observar a unos diseñadores obsesionados con la ergonomía y la transferencia entre lo industrial y lo doméstico: en apenas dos años, las piezas de contrachapado de madera que fabricaban como fuselaje de aviones se transformaron en entablillados para inmovilizar fracturas -en plena Segunda Guerra Mundial, el ejército era un cliente formidable- y de ahí devinieron en sillas. Al lado, sobre la pared, se despliega una matriz de portadas de Arts & Architecture diseñadas por Ray Eames. Son semillas del porvenir que comparten formas abstractas, empáticas curvas jazzísticas. A medida que uno avanza, el trabajo de los Eames se vuelve más y más envolvente en su intento por explicar el mundo en su complejidad, pero nunca pierde su vertiente lúdica. Cuando, al enfilar las últimas salas, aparece una colección de máscaras japonesas, resulta complicado separarlas de las propias creaciones del dúo, como si su trabajo se hubiera disuelto en lo popular. Una fusión que fructificó en 1949, cuando los Eames se mudaron a una casa de su autoría.

Buen amigo del matrimonio, John Entenza pensaba que Arts & Architecture, la revista que dirigía, debía predicar las ventajas del emparejamiento entre industria y vivienda moderna, y emprendió tras la guerra un ambicioso programa de construcciones ejemplares: las Case Study Houses. La casa Eames (número 8 del plan) puede resultar, en una primera impresión, decepcionante; un contenedor genérico que constata el aparente afeitado de la radicalidad en pro de la estética que tanto se ha reprochado a la modernidad norteamericana: desde la estructura vista a los paneles industriales en fachada que citan la paleta primaria del neoplasticismo. Sin embargo, una visión atenta corrige esta impronta. No hay manifiesto o heroicidad o violencia, sino apuesta por la fragilidad en unos pilares que se confunden con las carpinterías y por un uso creativo del color: aunque se pasa por el obligado azul y rojo de la vanguardia holandesa, el amarillo se sustituye por el dorado.

Pero lo que los Eames nos enseñan realmente, lo que aparece en las fotos de su vivienda -o en las de Entenza, su vecino junto al Pacífico, o en la que diseñaron para Billy Wilder, no construida pero sí bien documentada en la muestra- no es un proyecto de arquitectura, sino de vida. Para ellos, determinadas líneas no existieron; todo era susceptible de mezcla y podía ser filmado, fotografiado y, en consonancia, ampliado o reducido, como la residencia de Pacific Palisades, que se transformaría más tarde en estantería -la Eames Storage Unit- o casa de muñecas. Sus imágenes domésticas, con Charlie Chaplin e Isamu Noguchi tomando el té o Wilder fumando bajo un techo de candilejas, o sus filmaciones como House: After Five Years of Living -una sucesión de pequeños detalles- hablan de una contemporaneidad relajada e inclusiva, en la que los recuerdos de un viaje por México conviven con cuadros de Hans Hofmann, el mentor de Ray durante su etapa aprendiz de pintora en la Nueva York de los treinta.

Beatriz Colomina explica así el hechizo Eames: "La misma vida se ve como un continuo anuncio de sí misma [...], en la que cada ciudadano actúa como si estuviera a punto de ser filmado". El dúo confundió su narrativa personal con su desarrollo profesional: en su relato está su sustancia. Como si esas filmaciones caseras hubieran sido parte del experimento, desde finales de los 50 los diseñadores ampliaron su enfoque y se centraron en desarrollar complejísimas presentaciones audiovisuales. Las sinfonías multipantalla de Glimpses of the USA, realizada para la Exposición Nacional Americana de Moscú, en 1959, o Think, para el pabellón de la IBM en la Feria Mundial de Nueva York, de 1964, nos sacuden con una inesperada sensación de inocencia. ¿Qué sentiría un ciudadano de a pie al ser asaltado por esa sobrecarga sensorial?

Es entonces, en pleno ataque sinestésico, cuando se hace patente la figura de los Eames no como individuos talentosos, sino como proyecto global, sin formatos menores. La suma de cartas, proyectos expositivos, planos, detalles, maquetas, juegos infantiles, diagramas, notas, ballenas de papier-mâché o carros de diapositivas trabajando en simultaneidad ("click-click") logra en Londres algo inaudito: reavivar el propio anhelo de una modernidad sincera.

Vía Barbican Gallery, Londres.

The World of Charles and Ray Eames
21 October 2015 - 14 February 2016

Charles and Ray Eames are among the most influential designers of the 20th century. Enthusiastic and tireless experimenters, this husband and wife duo moved fluidly between the fields of photography, film, architecture, exhibition-making, and furniture and product design.

The Eames Office was a hub of activity where the Eameses and their collaborators produced an array of pioneering designs, communicating their ideas with a boundless creativity that defined their careers. The Eameses embraced the joy of trial and error and approached design as a way of life.

From personal letters, photographs, drawings and artwork, to their products, models, multi-media installations and furniture, The World of Charles and Ray Eames includes not only the designs for which they are best known, but provides an insight into the lives of the Eameses, the Eames Office and the breadth of their pioneering work, bringing their ideas and playful spirit to life.

The World of Charles and Ray Eames exhibition will tour to:

Bildmuseet, Umeå, Sweden
17 Apr–4 Sept 2016

Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT), Lisbon, Portugal
4 Oct 2016–8 Jan 2017

Lucia Eames (1930-2014)

Vía Eames Office.



Lucia Eames, designer, mother and beloved only child of American architect and designer Charles Eames, and beloved only step-daughter of designer and painter Ray Eames, died April 1, 2014. She was 83.

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, on October 11, 1930, to Charles and his first wife, Catherine Woermann, Lucia was an artist, graphic designer, owner of the Eames Office, founder of the Eames Foundation, and mother of five.

Her early years were spent in St. Louis and on the grounds of the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where her father at first studied architecture and then became head of the Industrial Design department. Lucia recalled those times fondly, including her attendance at Kingswood School for Girls on the Cranbrook Campus. Following his divorce from Catherine, her father married Ray Kaiser, who became Lucia’s stepmother, with whom she was exceptionally close.

Lucia finished her secondary school education at Mary Institute in St. Louis and attended Vassar College for two years, and graduated from Radcliffe College in 1952. There Walter Gropius was her professor, at a time when women were, as Lucia recalled, “dissuaded from studying architecture at Harvard.” In her adult years, Lucia lived in Massachusetts but eventually settled in the San Francisco Bay Area, always maintaining strong ties to St. Louis, her mother Catherine, and friends and family there.

An early sculpture, created when she was just 12 years old, was published in the legendary Arts & Architecture magazine. Throughout her life, she worked in many different media to create photographs, writings, beautiful and complex works woven with found objects, and large-scale commissions. She may be best known for her exquisite graphical metal works rendered in cut steel and bronze, which added an extra richness of beauty, power and physicality. Her works, which were shown at ArtPrize (Grand Rapids, MI) and the Landscape Garden Show (San Francisco, CA), can still be seen in the living room of the Eames House (Pacific Palisades, CA), Ma(i)sonry (Yountville, CA) and other collections both public and private. One of her best-known designs was the simple, elegant metal form Seeing with the Heart.

Lucia lived in Petaluma, California, in a residential structure by architect William Turnbull, whose space she transformed into an experience of extraordinary visual richness. It was also where, in her later years, she lived and worked with her daughter, Llisa, in the firm of Demetrios & Eames.

She was active with many local groups including the writing group Parachutists, Architecture & Design Forum (SFMOMA), Another Mother for Peace, the California Academy of Sciences, the Exploratorium, the Randall Museum and the International Interior Design Association.

On Ray’s death in 1988, Lucia became responsible for the design legacy of Charles and Ray Eames. With her deep understanding of the Eames philosophy learned from countless conversations with Charles and Ray, Lucia was asked by Ray to take responsibility for the Eames legacy in general, and the authenticity of Eames designs in particular.

As the owner of the Eames Office for 26 years, it was important to her that the Eames Office continues for generations after her death. For this reason, she ensured that the next generation assumed operational responsibility in the early 1990s.

In 1988, Lucia fulfilled Charles and Ray’s vision of gifting an important collection of the Eames Archives materials to the Library of Congress. In 2004, she established the Eames Foundation, which oversees the Eames House in Pacific Palisades, California, where she often stayed. Indeed, she vividly remembered picnicking in the meadow before the house was even built and witnessing the pivotal decision to dramatically change the design to its current form. The Eames House, considered by many to be the most important work of residential architecture from the latter half of the 20th century, is a National Historic Landmark. Lucia enjoyed sharing her many memories and experiences of Charles and Ray with visitors at the Eames home and studio.

In her remarkable life, Lucia met many of the most iconic cultural figures of her time: Humphrey Bogart, Billy Wilder, Buckminster Fuller, Eero Saarinen, Eliel Saarinen, Carl Milles, Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, George Nelson, Alexander Girard, Elmer Bernstein, Haku Shah, Isamu Kenmochi, John Entenza, Philip & Phylis Morrison, Josef & Anni Albers, and Corita Kent among them. She also knew generations of Eames collaborators such as the DePree family at Herman Miller and the Fehlbaum family at Vitra, manufacturing partnerships that continued enthusiastically during her reign.

Remembering her teen years in Los Angeles, Lucia recalled, “The pleasures of work were ongoing and continual as were those of play. Charles and Ray provided a rich environment for me that included courses at UCLA and work in the darkroom at 901; various projects included assembling photos and/or mounting same, building plywood sculptures, and pasting up or cutting out designs specific and otherwise.”

Such experiences informed her approach to the Eames work in her later years. Indeed, Lucia leaves a legacy of successful stewardship of one of the most significant design legacies of the modern era. Charles and Ray Eames, recognized as the most influential designers of the twentieth century, are best known for their furniture designs, which, in no small part due to Lucia, are still manufactured to the Eames standards today by Herman Miller in the U.S. and much of the world, and by Vitra in Europe and the Middle East.

Lucia will be remembered for her gracious hospitality, elegance, commitment to her parents’ works as well as for the deep, personal beauty of her art.