Two Nonprofits Preserving the Legacy of Charles and Ray Eames Announce Major News

It’s been a busy summer for institutions dedicated to upholding the legacy of Charles and Ray Eames.

In July, Case Study House No. 8—the 1949 Pacific Palisades studio and residence of the celebrated husband-wife design duo better known simply as the Eames House—reopened to visitors after the completion of restoration and cleaning efforts focused on smoke damage incurred during the devastating January wildfires that swept through Los Angeles County. (Added bonus: the studio building will be open to the public for the first time, hosting exhibitions, workshops, and other events.) Concurrent with the reopening of the National Historic Landmark–listed property, the Eames family announced the launch of the Charles & Ray Eames Foundation.

Ray and Charles sorting and selecting photographic slides at the Eames Office, circa late 1960s. Photo © 2025 Eames Office, LLC. All rights reserved

A sort of successor organization to the 2004-founded Eames Foundation, the newly formed nonprofit will ”build on decades of preservation and program achievements led by the second and third generations of the family,” according to a press release. Adrienne Luce is serving as executive director, supported by an expanded board of directors that includes five of Charles and Ray’s grandchildren, with grandson Eames Demetrios serving as chairman. In addition to overseeing its own holdings, including the Eames house, the foundation will launch a series of educational programming, research, and publications that “explore how Charles and Ray’s pioneering spirit, humanity, and design process can positively impact future generations to create a better world through design.” Eames Office, Charles and Ray’s original design studio which now operates as a family business, serves as founding patron of the foundation.

The exterior of the Eames House, as photographed by Chris Mottalini, 2025. Photo © 2025 Eames Office, LLC. All rights
reserved.

Archival photo of the old McGraw-Hill distribution warehouse in Novato. Photo courtesy Eames Institute

Several hundred miles up the California coast in Marin County, the unaffiliated Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity revealed late last week that it plans to turn the erstwhile Bay Area campus of German sandal-maker Birkenstock into a new art and design museum.

Located in the city of Novato, the roughly 89-acre campus includes an office building and sprawling warehouse locally known for its spiky, undulating roofline. Although Birkenstock called the site home from 1994 through 2019, it was first built as a distribution hub in the 1960s for McGraw-Hill, former publisher of RECORD. San Francisco architect John Savage Bolles of Candlestick Park fame designed the original complex; Herzog & de Meuron, joined by local firm EHDD as executive architect, have been tapped to transform it into a world-class art and design destination. Both existing buildings will be preserved and adapted for new use. Per a statement, the museum will feature “an array of immersive art exhibitions, makerspaces and workshops, high-impact educational programming, accessible public open space, culinary and retail offerings.” A portion of the Eames collection and family archives will be on display.

View of the former McGraw-Hill distribution center in Marin County. Photo courtesy Eames Institute

Interior of the warehouse building. Photo © Iwan Baan

The Eames Institute was cofounded in 2019 at the William Turnbull–designed Eames Ranch in Petaluma, Sonoma County, and publicly launched three years later by its current chief curator, Eames granddaughter Llisa Demetrios (also a board member of the Eames Foundation.) The nonprofit is currently headquartered in an industrial building in the East Bay city of Richmond once also used by San Francisco architectural bookseller William Stout to store inventory. (The institute acquired Stout Books in 2022; earlier this summer is also acquired Zurich-based Lars Müller Publishers.)  The institute’s relatively new Richmond hub is home to the Eames Archives, one of the world’s most significant collections of Eames-related objects. The archives hold roughly 40,000 items, including furnishings, tools, and personal items, all of which can be viewed during 90-minute public tours held three times per week.

Rendering of the central court at the Eames Institute’s planned museum. The adaptive reuse scheme incorporates both existing buildings at the site. Image courtesy Herzog & de Meuron

“This extraordinary space will enable us to expand our programming and reach a broader audience, while serving as a permanent anchor for creativity and innovation in the Bay Area,” said Eames Institute CEO and president John Cary of the newly announced museum in Novato.

“We are thrilled to now help transform this modernist campus into a vibrant public arts destination serving the Bay Area and beyond,” added Herzog & de Meuron partner Simon Demeuse, who notes that previous projects in the region like San Francisco’s de Young Museum, featured on the cover of RECORD in 2005, have helped the Swiss firm shape its overall practice.

Eames Demetrios, Lucia Dewey Atwood, and Adrienne Luce outside the studio at the Eames House, as photographed by Chris Mottalini,
2025. Photo © 2025 Eames Office, LLC. All rights reserved

The new museum is slated to open in 2028.

As for the Eames Foundation, it has announced a wide range of new initiatives including, but not limited to, a three-year fellowship program, the publication of Charles’s 1970/1971 Norton lecture series at Harvard, and the inaugural Eames Conference in 2026 to “create a new forum for professional dialog between leading Eames scholars and institutions.” And in addition to reopening the Eames House, so narrowly spared by the L.A. fires, the foundation announced it will implement “initial measures” of a Conservation Management Plan developed in partnership with the Getty Conservation Institute, that “lays the groundwork for major conservation efforts in the years to come.”