Best Eames Videos

Charles and Ray Eames need little introduction. The husband-and-wife team are lions of mid-century design, helping define what mid-century America would look like, feel like, and value. They also made some pretty awesome films on their work. Here are a quartet of our favorite Eames films—three made by Charles and Ray and one more of them introducing their legendary lounge chair on NBC. You know the designers, now get a taste for the filmmakers.

Here Charles and Ray Eames introduce their furniture, and debut the iconic Eames Lounge, in 1956 on the NBC show "Home." Charles gets most of the airtime, though we think Ray steals the show here. Extra cool that we get a making-of look at the Lounge.

Here's a classic from 1972 where Charles lays out his ideas about the nature of design. His candor and restraint answering most questions makes those fantastic design dictums, like design as "a plan for arranging elements to accomplish a particular purpose" all the more powerful. 

"House" from 1955 is a cheerful look at the home Charles and Ray designed for themselves in Pacific Palisades, California. Built in 1949, theirs was one of the famed California Case Study Houses and is now a bona fide classic of mid-century design. Lots of great imagery here, but pay special attention to the score by Elmer Bernstein. It's a jaunty, shifting accompaniment to one of the finest pieces of modern architecture.

Here's a great look by Ray and Charles of their design for the IBM pavilion at the 1964 World's Fair. The Eames Office teamed up with Eero Saarinen's office to design the pavilion and this short film brims with the kind of optimism, activity, and future-embracing wonder that has come to define the mid-century period. And another great score by Elmer Bernstein!