Plastic Furniture: the “Chairs-World”

Abstract

In the fifties of the last century, Charles and Ray Eames, developed a family of furniture that has been called Plastic Furniture. The aim of mass producing low cost furniture for the postwar american houses led them to devise a bold strategy. Through the combination of seats made of fibreglass and metal frame bases they could get a versatile range of chairs. The result was both a commercial success and one of the most celebrated designs of the twentieth century. On multiple occasions, the contributions of this furniture have been exclusively linked to technical and design innovations. Above them, this article analyzes as a main contribution the conceptual change with regard the preceding modern furniture and explores the implications of this new way of being related to the world. This approach enables us to understand the Plastic Furniture as a heterogeneous set that makes visible a way to operate with diversity.