LA Architecture Tours, Sightseeing & Tourism

Pudleaux Tourism offers a variety of Architecture Tours in Los Angeles, California.
Featuring the Silver Lake Neutra Tour and LA Frank Lloyd Wright Tour

Los Angeles Architecture Tours: Eames House/Case Study House #8: Charles and Ray Eames, 1945-1949

 

 

 

The Case Study House program, conceived in 1945 and headed by John Entenza, editor of Arts & Architecture magazine, as an opportunity to introduce to the public an array of prototypical houses designed by then-leading architects for modern, post-World War II living. Case Study House #8 was originally designed by Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen, but the final product, built in Pacific Palisades, was a collaborative effort by Charles Eames and his wife Ray. This brilliant husband and wife team built Case Study House #8 as their own home and studio, creating an atmosphere that combined leisure and work in one setting.

 

The Charles and Ray Eames House has a two-story, rectilinear form with free-flowing, open spaces that blur the lines of formal rooms. Industrial materials like steel, glass, and concrete were the building blocks of the Case Study Houses (and modern architecture, in general), and the Eames House is no exception with its glass walls, concrete retaining wall, and exposed, steel frame. 

 

In the decades following the house's 1949 completion, CSH #8 was the creative nucleus of the Eames' many artistic endeavors, which included architecture, film, textiles, and furniture design. Charles and Ray Eames lived in CSH #8 until their deaths in 1978 and 1988, respectively. They died exactly 10 years apart to the day on August 21.