Preserving The Eames House
Author:Abigail StoneIt’s impossible to consider the history of design, especially design in California, without mentioning Charles and Ray Eames. Now there’s a plan in place for ensuring that their home and studio will be preserved for years to come. All photos ©Eames Office.
This week, The Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) and the Eames Foundation announced a comprehensive Conservation Management Plan for the Pacific Palisades property that served as their home and studio from the time that it was built, in 1949, until their deaths–Charles in 1978 and Ray, ten years to the day, in 1988.
The house serves as a glass and steel icon of modern architecture and was designed by the couple as part of the influential Case Study House Program created by Arts and Architecture magazine editor John Entenza.
The home, also known as Case Study House No. 8, introduced many novel ideas about materials, construction and industrial design that still influence how we think about design and architecture today.
Nestled into hills, the house and its adjacent studio are in harmony with their bucolic surroundings. With the doors and windows open, inside and outside merge into one unified space, exemplifying the indoor/outdoor ethos that has come to define Southern California life, a radical idea at the time.
The full preservation plan can be view here. For information about visiting the home, which is open every day apart from Wednesdays and Sundays, follow this link.
