NEW YORK.- The Museum of Arts and Design opens the exhibit The Eames Lounge Chair: An Icon of Modern Design on view until September 3, 2006. The culmination of Charles and Ray Eames’s experimentation in molded plywood, the 1955 Eames Lounge Chair represents the epitome of both modernist style and luxurious comfort. The exhibition examines this icon of modern design through a dynamic installation including prototype models, drawings, advertisements, and an “exploded” version of the chair that breaks down its components. Through these materials, the Eames Lounge Chair will be fully explored in terms of its technical design, production, and promotion. Examples of other Eames designs will provide a context for the profound impact of this classic chair on subsequent furniture and its lasting legacy fifty years later.

With a grand sense of adventure, Charles and Ray Eames turned their curiosity and boundless enthusiasm into creations that established them as a truly great husband-and-wife design team. Their unique synergy led to a whole new look in furniture. Lean and modern. Playful and functional. Sleek, sophisticated, and beautifully simple. That was and is the "Eames look."

In an advertisement from 1961, Herman Miller Furniture Company, the manufacturer of the Eames Lounge Chair, posed the question, “Why so much fuss over a chair?” This is precisely the question that The Eames Lounge Chair: An Icon of Modern Design will answer by examining how this construction in molded-plywood, leather, and metal has come to take on iconic status in the world of modern design. The exhibition is organized by the Grand Rapids Art Museum in cooperation with Herman Miller.