Eames House

The Eames House is a landmark of mid-20th century modern architecture located at 203 North Chautauqua Boulevard in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles. It was constructed in 1949, by husband-and-wife design pioneers Charles and Ray Eames, to serve as their home and studio. The house is also known as Case Study House No. 8 because it was commissioned by Arts & Architecture magazine as part of a program challenging architects to design progressive, but modest, homes in Southern California. Charles and Ray moved into the home on Christmas Eve in 1949 and never moved out . Charles's daughter, Lucia Eames, inherited the home and created the non-profit organization, the Eames Foundation, in 2004. Still a historic house museum maintained by the Eames Foundation, it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006 and serves as a pilgrimage site for nearly 20,000 visitors a year .

In the early 1940s, John Entenza, the owner of Arts & Architecture magazine and Case Study Program founder, purchased 5 acres of land on a wooded bluff that was once part of Will Rogers' large estate. He sold 1.4 acres of this land to Charles and Ray in 1945. Their home's design was first sketched out by Charles Eames with fellow architect Eero Saarinen in 1945 as a raised steel and glass box projecting out of the slope and spanning the entrance drive before cantilevering dramatically over the front yard. The structure was to be constructed entirely from "off-the-shelf" parts available from steel fabricator catalogs. Immediately after the war, though, these parts were in very short supply. By the time the materials arrived three years later, much pre-construction time had been spent picnicking at and exploring the lot where the house would stand. After a period of intense collaboration between Charles and Ray, the scheme was radically changed to sit more quietly in the land and avoid impinging upon the pleasant meadow that fronted the house. Although Eero Saarinen did not have any contribution to the Eames House as-built, he did co-design the Entenza House with Charles Eames nextdoor for John Entenza.

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