meet charles and ray: eames institute exhibits design artifacts at herman miller NYC

What are the boundaries of our problems?

While the Eames Institute (see here) installation at New York’s Herman Miller flagship (see here) transports viewers back in time, it’s also a reminder of the timelessness of the pair’s design processes — they explored design solutions to continually overcome the problems of their generation. The Institute notes that when Ray and Charles Eames were asked ‘What are the boundaries of design?’ they responded by turning the question on its head: ‘What are the boundaries of problems?‘ The duo overcame material shortages, and made good design simpler to fabricate and more accessible.

The institute celebrates this approach today as a source of inspiration for young designers faced with a new era of problems to be solved.

 

 

the window installations

 

The Eames Institute recently teamed up with Brooklyn-based Standard Issue Design (see more here) to create a series of three window displays for Herman Miller’s New York City flagship. Each street-facing exhibit highlights a different aspect of the Eameses’ philosophy and craft, including their explorations in molded plywood, their graphics, photography and film, and their highly iterative processes.