Eames House
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Eames House
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The entry door to the Eames house
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| Location | 203 N. Chautauqua Blvd. Pacific Palisades, California |
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| Built | 1949 |
| Architect | Charles and Ray Eames |
| Architectural style | Modern Architecture |
| NRHP Reference # | 06000978 |
| LAHCM # | 381 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | September 20, 2006 |
| Designated NHL | September 20, 2006 |
| Designated LAHCM | July 15, 1988 |
The Eames House (also known as Case Study House No. 8) is a landmark of mid-20th century modern architecture located at 203 North Chautauqua Boulevard in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles. It was constructed in 1949, by husband-and-wife design pioneers Charles and Ray Eames, to serve as their home and studio.
Unusual for such an avant-garde design, the Eames Case Study No. 8 house was a thoroughly lived-in, usable, and well-loved home. Many icons of the modern movement are depicted as stark, barren spaces devoid of human use, but photographs and motion pictures of the Eames house reveal a richly decorated, almost cluttered space full of thousands of books, art objects, artifacts, and charming knick-knacks as well as dozens of projects in various states of completion. The Eames' gracious live-work lifestyle continues to be an influential model.
The design of the house was proposed by Charles and Ray as part of the famous Case Study House program for John Entenza's Arts & Architecture magazine. The idea of a Case Study house was to hypothesize a modern household, elaborate its functional requirements, have an esteemed architect develop a design that met those requirements using modern materials and construction processes, and then to actually build the home. The houses were documented before, during and after construction for publication in Arts & Architecture. The Eames' proposal for the Case Study House No. 8 reflected their own household and their own needs; a young married couple wanting a place to live, work and entertain in one undemanding setting in harmony with the site.
A 1.4-acre site near the coast in Pacific Palisades, on a wooded bluff that was once part of Will Rogers' large estate, was selected. The design was first sketched out by Charles Eames with fellow architect Eero Saarinen in 1945 as a raised steel and glass box projecting out of the slope and spanning the entrance drive before cantilevering dramatically over the front yard. The structure was to be constructed entirely from "off-the-shelf" parts available from steel fabricators catalogs. Immediately after the war, though, these parts were in very short supply. By the time the materials arrived three years later, much pre-construction time had been spent picnicking at and exploring the lot where the house would stand. After a period of intense collaboration between Charles and Ray, the scheme was radically changed to sit more quietly in the land and avoid impinging upon the pleasant meadow that fronted the house.
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