This is the question I’ve been asked most often over the years—Is you Eames chair comfortable?
Eames LCW History
Husband and wife design team Charles and Ray Eames began experimenting with molded plywood in 1941. A contract with the U.S. Navy to build molded ply leg splints in 1942 financed their manufacturing company, the Molded Plywood Company, formed by Eames and their associates. Within a year of production, cash flow problems led them to the Evans Products Company, a Detroit-based manufacturer of industrial equipment and a major supplier of lumber products and devices, who bought the rights to produce and distribute the Molded Plywood Company’s leg splints. Over 150,000 splints were manufactured.
The Eameses continued to experiment with molded plywood, the goal being to produce low-cost, high-quality furniture. The Eames LCW, Lounge Chair Wood, first hit the market in 1945 after years of building experimental chairs and prototyping. In 1946, Hermann Miller Furniture took over the marketing and distribution of Eames furniture, leaving production with Evans.
And the rest, is history.
The Eames LCW is still in production, manufactured by Hermann Miller in Zeeland, Michigan. The design is the essence of simplicity—five pieces of molded five-ply and rubber shock mounts to attach the parts and give the chair its subtle body movement-matching flexibility.
The Answer
Is you Eames chair comfortable?
Of course it is! Why else would I sit in it? As a matter of act, a set of 3 early-production (don’t ask) Eames LCW were my only form of seating for years. Today, a recent production red-stained beauty is my listening seat of choice and I can sit for as long as I want, hours on end, in complete comfort.
Other benefits of using the LCW as listening seat include its low profile back (26.25″) which leaves the head and ears free of chair-induced reflections, its light weight (a few lbs.) makes it easy to move, and the lounge chair height, seat height is 15.5″, puts you in a perfect place to relax and enjoy.
