Eames Birch LCW Chair, 1945

Birch-veneered moulded plywood seat and back, attached with rubber shock mounts to a frame of bend birch plywood. Out of earlier experimentation, which was carried out in collaboration with Eero Saarinen and Ray Eames, Charles Eames produces the LCW (Lounge Chair Wood). After exhibiting the chair at the Musemum of Modern Art in New York, the California-based firm Evans Products Company manufactured it from 1946 to 1949, after which time Herman Miller took over the chair's manufacture from 1949 to 1957. A diving version was also produced (DCW), as were two versions with metal legs (LCM and DCM). A variety of finishes was available, which included leather, slunk-skin or fabric upholstery and weed veneers, as well as aniline-dyed variations in black, red or yellow. The LCW and the other chairs of the Moulded Plywood series were highly suited to mass production: they were manufactured in component form with the fewest possible parts using a minimum of materials.