Saturday, January 3, 2015

Eames Aluminum Group Lounge Chairs

The Eames name is synonymous with mid-century modern.  So many of their designs are well known and many continue to influence modern design today.  If longevity is a mark of success, then the various chairs from the Eames Aluminum group are amongst the most successful of modern furniture designs.  Designed in 1956, they have been in continuous production for almost 60 years.  Their stylishly simple and ergonomic design has been copied by many producers.  The 4 available chairs are the lounge chair version from the aluminum group.  Despite their minimalist design they are very comfortable.  The thick, textural wool fabric is suspended in the aluminum frame and conforms the the body whey you sit in it.  These chairs do not recline but do revolve on their bases.

Most of my restorations are case pieces and nearly all have wood components.  These chairs took me back to my roots.  Before I was a modern design junkie and furniture restorer I was a cyclist.  Back in the day, when I was starting out as a cyclist, the finest bicycle components came from Italy and were made of aluminum.  I used to take every piece of my bike apart and polish it until it gleamed like chrome.  Every bolt was removed, even the insides of parts were polished.

It took a few weeks to restore these.  The aluminum frames and bases were oxidized and pitted.  The arms of the chairs originally had a clear plastic coating on them.  When I acquired these the coating on the arms all had cracked, some only had about half the coating on them.  I removed it all and polished the arms as well as the frames and bases.  The fabric was quite dirty but other than a little loss of color saturation is in good shape.  They have been returned to nearly their new glory.  The tags remain on 3 of the 4 and show a 11-8-80 delivery date.  They have not been used since I finished restoring them.

The current retail price of these is about $1800 each from Herman Miller with this fabric.

I will only sell these in pairs.

Sold








No comments:

Post a Comment