Image source: Vitra — La Chaise
© Vitra and the respective rights holders. Quoted to accompany INTEBEE's independent design commentary and research.
La Chaise
Eames lounge chair of 1948 with a white polyester resin shell on a chrome and oak base.
1470 × 880 × 870 mm
1948
Official product information
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Description
Overview
La Chaise is the lounge chair Charles and Ray Eames entered in the 1948 competition run by New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), which Vitra's magazine names as the 'International Competition for Low-Cost Furniture Design'. Vitra links its name and form to 'Floating Figure', a sculpture by Gaston Lachaise, and its factsheet speaks of an expansive piece that lets the sitter choose among many sitting and reclining positions. Vitra's magazine describes it as a one- or two-seater.
Construction
Vitra's materials text names a polyester resin shell finished in white lacquer, a chrome-plated tubular steel base and a cruciform foot in solid oak, natural, with a hard-wax oil finish. The magazine describes three distinct components: the shell sits on five chrome-plated steel rods that are anchored in the cruciform oak base. The oak (Quercus robur) comes from Western Europe and/or Poland, and there is only a single configuration.
Specifications
1470 mm wide, 870 mm deep and 880 mm high. Shell: white. Base: 01 chrome for the rods, 10 natural oak with hard-wax oil for the foot.
Story
Made for a competition
The chair was drawn up for the 1948 contest of New York's Museum of Modern Art, where Charles and Ray Eames entered it as a lounge chair. Vitra's product page and its factsheet both give 1948 as the year, and the factsheet's title line reads Charles & Ray Eames, 1948. According to Vitra's magazine, the Eames Office saw it as functional furniture for conversation, rest and play, but its massive sculptural form made it too complicated for mass production.
A sculpture behind the name
Vitra relates the lounge chair to Gaston Lachaise's 'Floating Figure'. The sculpture's voluminous shape has clear affinities with the Eameses' chair, and the magazine calls the name a playful reference to the artist; the sculpture was a source of inspiration. The factsheet adds that La Chaise has long counted as an icon of organic design, and the magazine ties its unusual form to Ray Eames's training as a painter and her love of organic shapes.
Into production
In an interview on Vitra's magazine, Rolf Fehlbaum recalls that the MoMA collection held only the one competition model. In the mid-1980s he asked Ray Eames whether Vitra could produce it if MoMA gave permission, and Vitra has made La Chaise in an artisanal manner since 1990. The magazine's article on the chair says it has been produced exclusively by Vitra since 1990. Fehlbaum calls it a flop by the competition's criteria, because it cannot be made as economically as the Eameses imagined, but a very beautiful sculpture.
More by Charles and Ray Eames
Occasional Table LTR
Eames low occasional table of 1950 with a steel-wire rod base and wood, HPL, linoleum or marble top.
Soft Pad Chair EA 223
Eames stool for the EA 222 lounge chair, with a sewn-on cushion and an aluminium base, 1969.
Plywood Group DCW
Eames' Dining Chair Wood: made entirely of moulded plywood, 1945/1946.
Eames Chaise
The 1968 Eames Chaise, an 18-inch-wide leather chaise on a die-cast aluminum frame.