Unseen Eames: Films from the Vault

I asked Eames Demetrios, the grandson of Charles and Ray Eames (as well as an artist, filmmaker, chairman of the Eames Foundation, and inventor of an alternate universe called Kymaerica) to cull through his family's vast archives and curate a few short films that shed some light on lesser-known aspects of his grandparents' design breadth. I first met him earlier this year, when he took me on a fascinating tour of his grandparents' house in Pacific Palisades.

When we started planning Dwell on Design, I reached out to him with this idea, and he was into it. Among the handful of films he selected is 'Design Q&A,' a gem from 1972 in which Charles Eames answers pressing questions, pitched to him by a mesmerizingly singsongy French woman, such as "Can the computer substitute for the Designer?" (this was 1972!) and "What are the boundaries of design?" (answer: "What are the boundaries of problems?"). For a sneak peek, you can watch a YouTube version here:

This and three other, more rare films you've probably never seen or heard of, will be screened on Saturday. Come and watch with us!

And, to see Demetrios in action, stop by the Design Innovation Stage on Friday June 24th at noon. He'll be chatting with Dwell editor-in-chief Sam Grawe about the Eames Aluminum group chair, its origins at the J. Irwin Miller house in Columbus, Indiana, and the enduring legacy of the now iconic design.