"The Eames Houses" and how it feels to be inside the Eames Pavilion System at Salone in Milan
Experiencing the nostalgic and pragmatic 1949 and 2026 Eames Houses from an insider, the Eames Office's Archivist.
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* These thoughts are merely my personal opinion and do not reflect the ideas of the Eames Office or the Charles & Ray Eames Foundation.
Ciao! Salone del Mobile/Milan Design Week has come and (almost) gone, and I have the extreme pull to share with you a peek behind the curtain of The Eames Houses. I’m the Archivist for the Eames Office, and this is my personal account of my time spent in Milan.
All it took for my heart to be slingshotted to the past was one profound inhale while standing inside the Eames House Pavilion at the Triennale in Milan.
This overwhelming burst of sentimentality at Milan Design Week led me back to two moments in time. One, which I experienced firsthand: being inside the Eames House as a twenty-five-year-old, giving passionate tours of Case Study House No. 8 in the Pacific Palisades, California, to people from all over the world. The 1.4-acre eucalyptus-spotted meadow overlooking the Pacific Ocean was the idyllic starting point for introducing visitors to the Case Study House Program, sponsored by Arts & Architecture magazine and its owner/editor, John Entenza.
Charles, Ray, and Entenza shared and visited the meadow, envisioning their two steel-framed Case Study Houses in close proximity in 1945. Plans shifted. The suspended “Bridge House” design for Charles and Ray’s home was halted due to post-WWII material shortages. Picnics, bow-and-arrow shootings, and other gatherings gave the Eameses extra time to fall even more in love with the meadow. By 1948, they reconsidered their original design. Instead, the new plan was to nestle their steel-and-glass box into a carved hillside, shaded by a perfect row of eucalyptus trees planted by Abbot Kinney in the 1890s.
My second time-travel moment is one I’ve constantly imagined while working for the Eames legacy for 11 years: how must it have felt for Charles and Ray Eames to exist at home? The place which they compared to living inside a Chinese kite. What was it like for Ray to admire the suspended tumbleweed they picked up on their honeymoon road trip from the Midwest to Los Angeles? Its shadows are always spinning and stretching by the hour today, even while its twiggy body is slowly diminishing. How much awe did Charles embody when he climbed the industrial staircase of the studio, while seeing the world filtered through a layer of wire-embedded safety glass? Could he have known that the same trees would still guard his house forty-eight years after his passing?
The September 1950 issue of Architectural Forum: The Magazine of Building printed the article LIFE IN A CHINESE KITE about the Eames House’s materiality and livability. In it, Charles noted:
“There was no reason for a house to not be:
Spacious—space being the greatest luxury there is;
A sophisticated industrial product;
And as light and airy as a suspension bridge—as skeletal as an airplane fuselage.”
We can surely understand how a steel home could be comparable to a suspension bridge or an airplane, and the Eames Pavilion System provides this same juxtaposition of industrial strength meets airy relief.
But why was the industrial Eames House compared to a weightless, delicate kite?
Besides its obvious aesthetic similarities to a box kite, its two structures were surprisingly lightweight for being constructed with materials synonymous with strength and unyielding heaviness. With its “delicate tracery of thin rods,” the Eames House’s frame was assembled with the fewest parts possible. The structure relied on the retaining wall and foundation’s anchoring into the hillside for much of its permanence. The rectangular boxes of the residence and studio—with turnbuckles, open webbed joists, and welded-plate connections—formed a sturdy frame. The Eameses wanted to prove to the general public (and, presumably, to themselves) that the use of industrial materials didn’t have to equate to a stark, heavy, and lifeless piece of architecture. Quite the opposite: it could yield a warm, residential space.
Architectural Forum, while taking into account these various industrial parts, eloquently described the kite analogy further:
“As the spare steel skeleton shot up between the retained hillside and the eucalyptus trees, the house assumed that wonderful constructivist look that every sidewalk superintendent recalls with nostalgia long after the frame had been dressed up and disguised. . . .
Into the frame of his steel box kite he fitted sheets of glass, wire glass (‘to make people realize it is there’), asbestos, plywood, or plaster in varying colors. Some of these sheets were fixed in place—fixed at least until Eames should decide to knock them out and replace them with some material of different texture or translucency. Others were set into projecting sash, ready to be opened to the breezes from the sea. All combined to create an ever-changing play of light and shadow, a series of surprise vistas, of sudden planes of color suspended in mid-air.
What did it all prove? To Charles Eames it proved that life could be beautiful, and that industrial precision as the designer’s ally could make it so.”
You can read more of the Architectural Forum article here.
The Eames Houses exhibition at Salone del Mobile
The line for the Eames Office’s The Eames Houses exhibition zigzagged and stretched for hundreds of people long for most of Salone’s duration last week. This popularity only picked up as word of mouth spread that it was one of the experiences you could not miss.*
Yes, you should not miss the Eames Pavilion Systems themselves! But what I find equally important is all the historical, archival material that is collaged across the walls and displayed in cases.
You can’t miss Eames films like Powers of Ten and Blacktop being projected on the floor in a way that I’ve never seen in an exhibition before. Charles and Ray directed and produced over one hundred films throughout their lifetimes, and these were two that showcase their attention to scale, the universe, and “the uncommon beauty of common things.” Unmissable also—absolutely—are contemporary to-scale models of all of the steel- and wood-framed architectural projects that the Eames Office created in the 1940s and ‘50s.
The models, fabricated by AT Models, are seen by the public (and me!) for the first time and they really give the sense of cohesion of structure and Charles and Ray’s thinking during that era—in furniture, in films, in architecture, etc.
While the Eames Office was designing the Time magazine-branded “the chair of the century,” the Eames LCW (Lounge Chair Wood), they were also figuring out the cantilevering of their first design for their steel-supported home and studio. While the Eames Molded Fiberglass Side Chair was first in production, they had just finished building both the Eames House and Entenza House—and also the Herman Miller Los Angeles Showroom, which would showcase their furniture designs for years to come. Furniture and architecture were each solving different problems with the same exact materials. In this part of the exhibition, you’ll be able to see exactly when the Eameses’ attention shifted to wood-framed housing when certain environments or material shortages called for it.
If you’re still in Milan, the exhibition is staying up at the Triennale di Milano through May 10th. Stay tuned for whether the pavilion system will be traveling near you.
*I am biased and fully agreed—and did not shut up about it if I heard anyone around town discussing where they should head next. Often, these strangers had either already been (and we could gush about it together) or they had it high on their list, and my motivation pushed them to head over as soon as they could.
The Eames Pavilion System
The Eames Office partnered with Barcelona-based Kettal to manufacture and design the Eames Pavilion System, a kit-of-parts architectural endeavor with the goal of offering the world the ethos of Charles and Ray Eames and the Case Study Program of post-war Los Angeles. While making new discoveries in the Eames Office archives, and also reviewing materials we have long cherished, my colleagues and I were sparked to push the Eames architecture philosophies into our present day. The world desperately searches for housing and building solutions, and who best to learn from than Charles and Ray?
Harnessing Kettal’s expertise in metal fabrication—one it hones through its lesser-known outdoor pavilion business—all parts were brought up to present-day standards. Steel was replaced by far more weather-resistant aluminum, and single-pane windows were replaced by triple glazing.
The simplified yet more agile kit-of-parts product comprises aluminum ‘I’ and ‘H’ beams infilled by glass, polycarbonate, and wood insert panels. When fully available to the market in early 2027—as a single unit, a double module, and a multi-bay configuration—the Eames Pavilion System will be fully insulated and conducive to various climatic conditions. A 2mx2m-grid room-with-in-a-room interior application will hit the market at the end of 2026.
A pavilion evoking the Eames House was built inside the exhibition at a different scale—almost identical in height, but compacted in width and length. The House’s still intact colorful and neutral Cemesto panels were translated neatly on the facade using a contemporary replacement, and expanses of glass enclosed a double-floor interior that feels very spot-on to elements of the original. The Eames House and the next door Entenza House were known to Charles as “technological twins but architectural opposites”; the same can be felt when comparing the actual Eames House with this Eames House Pavilion. Familiar, but different on purpose.
The pavilion is true to reality in other small, tangible ways. After knocking my head on the underside of the steel staircase in the Kettal version of the Eames House, I turned to my colleague-turned-friend, the Charles & Ray Eames Foundation’s Assistant Director, Tommy Gartman, while touching my head. “Wow, even the staircase feels similar!” As tall people who have spent thousands of hours at the Eames House, we shared an understanding laugh.
I also enjoyed seeing one of my favorite Eames House collection items: a tiny oil painting that Ray painted for Charles, For C in Limited Palette, in 1943. Ray trained in abstract painting under the wings of Hans Hofmann in New York City from 1933 to 1939 and was a founding member of the American Abstract Artists. The painting—a sentimental relic from Ray’s abstracted New York past—hangs forever in the spiral staircase in the entryway of their home, protected by the swirl of molded Korina plywood. It was a love letter of sorts to Charles, and this pavilion feels like our love letter to Charles and Ray.
Despite the necessary exhibition lighting, the Isamu Noguchi Akari Light Sculpture and George Nelson Bubble Lamps inside the pavilion gave the structure a glow I recognized: the jewel box effect of the Eames House at nighttime. A feeling that stretches your sense of romanticism every time you witness it. Charles and Ray made steel, Cemesto, wired glass, board-form concrete retaining walls, resin-coated canvas panels, and ship staircases feel warmly humanistic by filling the structures with evidence of their life and creative work.
I can’t help but swell with curiosity while wondering what types of homes and workspaces these pavilions will become all over the world. In my highest hopes, they will be layered with cultured, design-packed objects; colorful and innocently explored drawings made by children; plants growing and hanging from the open-webbed steel joists of the ceiling; and proof that thoughtful design can lighten our lives.
What’s also important to know is that the Eames Pavilion System provides thousands of other configurations for life and work. AKA: you are not only tied to the outcome of living in a different-proportioned Eames House. The Eames Office x Kettal offer one- and two-story configurations in a broad series of colors, materials, and sizing. A real life Revell Toy House.
A book brimming with Eamesian architecture
The book The Eames Houses, published by the Eames Office and Phaidon, was a tremendous labor of love by me and my colleagues (primarily Eames Demetrios, Catherine Ince, Jackie Cassel, and Eckart Masie), a foreword by Norman Foster, plus Creative Director Omar Sosa of Aparamento, graphic designers Nina Maise and Clara van Handel, and others. The past year of my life was so intensely dedicated to the formation of this book about 1940s-50s Eames architecture, but the archiving spanned the few years prior, and my love for their architecture has filled nearly a couple of decades. Every picture and drawing in this book was researched, shared, and passed by and through me, which makes me well up with immense pride (and sometimes tears).
The Eames Houses book is, like Charles and Ray themselves, a culmination of everything. The couple’s principles of design; collages, drawings, technical floor plans; historic photographs of land plots of eucalyptus groves; under construction steel or wood framing; Charles and Ray portraits and notes; collages determining different options for structure and color schemes; and correspondence between friends, family, clients, and colleagues trying to theorize and realize homes, studios, carports, and offices.
A good portion of these materials had never been seen before by the public, or even by us on staff or in the Eames family. A very important fourth generation member of the Eames family, Jackie Cassel, and I were the first to sort through particular archival boxes to document, conserve, restore, photograph, scan, describe—and now share—these treasures. Having had my hands (and handwriting!) on them is an indescribable dose of luck for me. And now, the public can have their eyes on them for generations to come. We hope you adore them as much as we do, and that the buildings of Charles and Ray Eames provoke you to live more creatively.
For those in the US, the book is available for pre-order and will ship on July 8th.
If you’ve had the chance to see the exhibition in Milan, or if you’re an Eames fan, I’d love to hear your feedback!
Related Notes:
Catherine Ince wrote Absolutely prefab: at home with Charles and Ray Eames for Apollo Magazine—out this week online and in the April 2026 print issue.
Wallpaper* created a short about the Eameses, filled with Eames Office historic materials.
MORE SALONE MATERIAL COMING SOON. I returned home less than 24 hours ago and have many, many thoughts and photographs to process. Milanese architecture, design, and food galore arriving to Absolument—stay tuned!
Ali LaBelle is curating a Milan and Turin trip this fall, and while I was in Milano, I couldn’t stop thinking about how perfect, perfect, perfect it will be. She is still accepting applications—join if you can!!!! Seeing Milan from her eyes will change your life, I’m confident about that.
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Kelsey Rose
LOVED this article!! Thank you so much for writing your account. I particularly love seeing the detail of a tumbleweed hanging in the Pavilion at Salone! That was always one of my favorite details from the Palisades home. Also congratulations on and thank you for the book!!! I just pre-ordered it :) looking forward to poring through it when I receive it later this summer x
This was a wonderful read! Considering the range of their creative projects, the Eameses come across as a whole Bauhaus movement unto themselves. I'm looking forward to the book when it comes out. Bravo for all your contributions to the book and to this project.