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EAMES LOUNGE CHAIR (670) & OTTOMAN (671)
Licensed Reproduction, circa 1956
Made by Herman Miller® in US
Made by Vitra® in Europe
33″ w | 33.5″ d | 33″ h (Classic)
33″ w | 33.5″ d | 35″ h (New Vitra)
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The Eames Lounge Chair and ottoman, officially titled Eames Lounge (670) and Ottoman (671), were released in 1956 after years of development by designers Charles and Ray Eames for the Herman Miller furniture company. It was the first chair the Eameses designed for a high-end market. These furnishings are made of moulded plywood and leather. Examples of these furnishings are part of the permanent collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Charles and Ray Eames originally made the lounge chair and ottoman as a gift for their friend Billy Wilder, the director of “Some Like It Hot” and “Sunset Blvd.” The design was launched by Arlene Francis, host of NBC’s “Home” show, on that show she introduced Charles and Ray to television audiences in 1956, along with their iconic design Lounge Chair and Ottoman. The recorded launch is in the video below.

EAMES LOUNGE CHAIR DESIGN
The Eameses focused first on usability in their designs. In addition to the style, the Eames Lounge Chair is very comfortable, a combination not always found in high design. The chair has become iconic with Modern style design although when it was first made Ray Eames remarked in a letter to Charles that the chair looked “comfortable and un-designy”. Charles’s vision was for a chair with “the warm, receptive look of a well-used first baseman’s mitt.” The chair is composed of three curved plywood shells. In modern production the shells are made up of seven thin layers of wood veneer glued together and shaped under heat and pressure. This differentiates the newer chairs from the “original” (vintage) chairs which used Brazilian rosewood veneers and were constructed of five layers of plywood. Also differentiating the very earliest sets from newer sets were rubber spacers between the aluminium spines and the wood panels first used in the earliest production models and then hard plastic washers used in later versions. In the earlier sets, the zipper around the cushions may have been brown or black as well, and in newer sets the zippers are black. The shells and the seat cushions are essentially the same shape: composed of two curved forms interlocking to form a solid mass. The chair back and headrest are identical in proportion, as are the seat and the Ottoman.

The Eameses constantly made use of new materials. The pair’s first plywood chair—the Eames Lounge Chair Wood (LCW)—made use of a heavy rubber washer glued to the backrest of the chair and screwed to the lumbar support. These washers, which have come to be called ‘shock mounts’, allow the backrest to flex slightly. This technology was brought back in the 670 Lounge chair. The backrest and headrest are screwed together by a pair of aluminium supports. This unit is suspended on the seat via two connection points in the armrests. The armrests are screwed to shock mounts on the interior of the backrest shell, allowing the backrest and headrest to flex when the chair is in use. This is part of the chair’s unusual design, as well as its weakest link. The rubber washers are solidly glued to the plywood shells, but have been known to tear free when excessive weight is applied, or when the rubber becomes old and brittle.

HERMAN MILLER & VITRA
Since its introduction, the chair has been in continuous production by Herman Miller in America. Later, Vitra (in cooperation with the German furniture company Fritz Becker KG) began producing the chair for the European market. The Two manufacturer’s design differ slightly. The main differences are mainly in the aluminium base. While both have 5 arms the cross section of each arm of the Herman Miller is ‘T’ is shaped where as the cross section on the Vitra arms are straight.

Since Charles and Ray Eames always understood design to be a continuous process – one that did not end when production began. The main goal of the Eames Lounge Chair was – and still is – to offer users maximum sitting comfort. Since the Lounge Chair went into production more than 50 years ago, the height of the average human – depending on region – has increased by as much as 10 cm. To enable larger people to experience exceptional comfort when sitting, Vitra has – in close coordination with the Eames Office – adjusted the dimensions of the Lounge Chair. In doing so, the proportions of the seat and back shells were carefully extended in such a way that the overall visual appearance of the Eames Lounge Chair seems to hardly have changed at all. A comparison of the changes can be seen below.