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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's

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Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and we're just doing our

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Speaker 2: usual chatting it up here on the podcast that we

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Speaker 2: like to call stuff you should that's right.

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Speaker 1: I'm pretty excited about this one.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this is your pick, right.

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Speaker 1: Uh, yeah, this is one I've been wanting to do

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Speaker 1: for a long time.

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Speaker 2: Well, here we are, Charles, here we are. Well, I'm

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Speaker 2: glad you're excited. I'm excited too. It's a pretty cool topic.

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Speaker 2: The Eames, Charles and Ray Eames, Ray and Charles Eames.

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Speaker 2: Depending on how you want to say, it doesn't matter

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Speaker 2: because any way you slice it, they were equals.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, if you don't know who we're

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Speaker 1: talking about, we should probably say so right off the

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Speaker 1: bat they are, or I guess they should say we're

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Speaker 1: a married couple who kind of I don't know if

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Speaker 1: they changed the face of design, but they were certainly

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Speaker 1: very influential and design and you know all they did

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Speaker 1: all kinds of things in their career, but what they're

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Speaker 1: most known for is their design of simple, eye pleasing

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Speaker 1: and back then affordable furniture.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not even sure it was particularly affordable back then,

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Speaker 2: but that was definitely their goal. They wanted to make

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Speaker 2: the best for the most, for the least. They really

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Speaker 2: tied into the ethos that they were working in, which

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Speaker 2: was immediately post war economic boom America.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I saw that there. And this was in their

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Speaker 1: great documentary Eames Colon, The Architect and the Painter from

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Speaker 1: twenty eleven filmmakers Jason Kohne and Bill Jersey. I've seen

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Speaker 1: it twice. Now.

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Speaker 2: That's an American Masters one, isn't it.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I think picked it up, but I

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Speaker 1: don't think it originally was. But I'm not sure. But

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Speaker 1: I saw it back in twenty eleven, I guess, and

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Speaker 1: then watch it again yesterday and today. But they said

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Speaker 1: that it was, you know, definitely sort of middle to

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Speaker 1: upper middle class people were who could afford to buy

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Speaker 1: their stuff at the time. But it wasn't for the

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Speaker 1: lofty super rich.

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Speaker 2: Right, But it also wasn't for your average Joe Schmoe

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Speaker 2: with a mortgage and all that.

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Speaker 1: Right, Well, all some stuff was okay.

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Speaker 2: So you said that they didn't necessarily change the face

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Speaker 2: of design.

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Speaker 3: I don't know.

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Speaker 2: I'm not one hundred percent sure. I guess looking back

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Speaker 2: with hindsight, the way that people treat them today, they're

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Speaker 2: revered like gods. Yeah, for sure, But I guess maybe

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Speaker 2: at the time contemporaneously they were part of a larger push.

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Speaker 2: Like they worked with Aerosarinin he was a huge, hugely

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Speaker 2: influential architect and designer. They worked to Charles Nelson, a

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Speaker 2: hugely influential designer. They were part of like this vanguard,

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Speaker 2: I guess of you modernist design again, using kind of

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Speaker 2: like industrial readily available, mass producible materials, but applying really

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Speaker 2: really like legitimately artistic talent and vision and design to

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Speaker 2: the whole thing.

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Speaker 1: You know, I had no idea until just now that

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Speaker 1: Charles Nelson Riley also worked in design.

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Speaker 2: He did. He said, I can't even do it. I

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Speaker 2: can't do it in person. You me probably could. One

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Speaker 2: of our dogs is named Charlie, named after Charles Nelson

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Speaker 2: Riley when she was a kid.

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Speaker 1: Oh man, I mean, if that's not a joke, for

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Speaker 1: I mean, gen X is the low end of that joke.

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Speaker 2: Did you see his One man Show? No, they did

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Speaker 2: a documentary of his One Man's Show that he did

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Speaker 2: before his death. And it's good, very touching, poignant, like

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Speaker 2: Charles Nelson Riley with a little bit of his guard down.

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Speaker 1: M I'd like to see that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, check it out. But let's say we go back

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Speaker 2: to the beginning and we'll let everybody else decide whether

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Speaker 2: they change the face of design or not.

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Speaker 1: All right, we'll start with well, let's start with Bernice

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Speaker 1: Alexandra Kaiser, and we were like, who the heck is

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Speaker 1: that her family called her re Ray and that eventually

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Speaker 1: just got shortened.

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Speaker 2: To Ray got sick of that hyphen.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. She was born in Sacramento in nineteen twelve, and

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Speaker 1: she ended up being interested in a lot of things,

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Speaker 1: as did her future husband Charles, but she was largely

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Speaker 1: an artist and largely a painter, even though she was

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Speaker 1: into engineering and obviously design and all kinds of stuff

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Speaker 1: like that, But she was basically a painter and would

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Speaker 1: eventually study under a gentleman named Hans Hoffmann, very famous

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Speaker 1: German expressionist, and was a bit of a rabble rouser

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Speaker 1: in the art community early on, and that she was like,

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Speaker 1: she was in a group called American abstract artists that

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Speaker 1: would do things like Pickett if they didn't you know,

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Speaker 1: have art shows that represented different kinds of artists.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, apparently militancy toward modernist ideas was kind of a

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Speaker 2: through thread for people who were into modernism, like they

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Speaker 2: really were in the face of tradition and bucking that

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Speaker 2: whole thing, and part of that was kind of like

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Speaker 2: a militant approach to it, which I guess includes picketing

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Speaker 2: art galleries. Right, yeah, but she was part of that

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Speaker 2: movement before Pollock and d'cooning. Is it to coooning or cooning?

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Speaker 1: I think it's decooning.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, before those guys, even like a decade before those

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Speaker 2: guys came into it, she was part of like that

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Speaker 2: first wave. So yeah, she was legit abstract artists. And

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Speaker 2: then her husband was born five years previously, I think

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Speaker 2: in nineteen oh seven in Saint Louis, Missouri. Just missed

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Speaker 2: the World's Fair. Oh when was that nineteen oh four?

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Speaker 1: Wow, well he might have gone.

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Speaker 2: Have you ever seen meet me in Saint Louis?

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Speaker 1: Oh wait years three years prior? Sorry, that would be impossible, right,

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Speaker 1: I was like, they could have taken a three year old, Yeah.

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Speaker 2: But they couldn't have taken a negative three year old.

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Speaker 1: I know they tried.

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Speaker 2: I guess technically, I guess they did if that sperm

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Speaker 2: had just stayed in the same place and that was

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Speaker 2: the same page and they just were frozen in time

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Speaker 2: essentially reproductively.

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Speaker 1: Oh boy, yeah.

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Speaker 2: At any rate. He was born in Saint Louis in

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Speaker 2: nineteen oh seven and he wanted to be an architect,

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Speaker 2: essentially out of the gate. He studied architecture at Washington

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Speaker 2: University in Saint Louis and he got kicked out. He

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Speaker 2: left Slash got kicked out after about two years of

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Speaker 2: study because he was also a militant modernist and at

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Speaker 2: the time the training he was receiving was not so

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Speaker 2: I described as bos art and it was not modernist

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Speaker 2: at all, and they were like, get out of here,

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Speaker 2: you hippie bozo. So he did.

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Speaker 1: He did not stop him though, he was like, you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm still going to be an architect, Like, how often

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Speaker 1: does anyone say, let me see your degree. It's true

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Speaker 1: when you're just sing a house, I know. So, even

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Speaker 1: though he didn't technically have the professional, you know, school

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Speaker 1: credentials finished, he started practicing with a guy named Robert Walsh.

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Speaker 1: He was very good at it early on, and everyone

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Speaker 1: was like this guy, you know, did you see his degree?

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Speaker 1: I didn't see his degree, but I'm not going to

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Speaker 1: ask because you should see the way he draws up

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Speaker 1: a house.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, he would hand off his drawings with this probably

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Speaker 2: won't fall down.

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Speaker 1: And I think that was Frank Loyd, right, Okay. In

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Speaker 1: nineteen twenty nine he got married for the first time

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Speaker 1: to a woman named Katherine Warman. They were college sweethearts,

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Speaker 1: I guess, and had a daughter who had end up

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Speaker 1: being the only sired child for Charles Eames. He never

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Speaker 1: had a kid with Ray. Her name was Lucia, and

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Speaker 1: he was doing such a good job that there was

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Speaker 1: an architect. You mentioned his son, Arrow Saranon earlier, but

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Speaker 1: the architect, the father, I guess, Eliel Saranon, said Hey,

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Speaker 1: I like what you're throwing down there, Why don't you

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Speaker 1: come on out to Michigan, to the Cranberry Academy of

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Speaker 1: Art in Bloomfield Heels Hills, and why don't you become well,

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Speaker 1: first of all, come out for a fellowship. But you know,

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Speaker 1: as you'll see, Charles Eames was very ambitious guy, and

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Speaker 1: before you know it, he was the director of the

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Speaker 1: industrial design program there.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, he was supposedly thinking he was just going to

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Speaker 2: go there and take it easy and kind of regather, regroup,

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Speaker 2: and they're like, no, you're too talented. You need to

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Speaker 2: head all this up at Cranbrook.

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Speaker 1: I believe, right, which is very key because that is

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Speaker 1: where Rey Ray ended up.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm working together at Cranbrook. They got into one

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Speaker 2: of their early materials, probably the material that made them

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Speaker 2: famous at least initially but still is kind of associated

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Speaker 2: with their design, plywood. Plywood. They were like, plywood, We're

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Speaker 2: going to start making things out of plywood. Just watch.

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Speaker 2: And I think at the time plywood doesn't have quite

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Speaker 2: the connotation that does now, like the stuff you just

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Speaker 2: kind of lay over your attic rafters and crawl on like.

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Speaker 2: It was a little more high tech than that, but

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Speaker 2: not that much more so. The idea of taking plywood

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Speaker 2: and turning into a beautiful organic design that also was

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Speaker 2: functional too, it was kind of groundbreaking.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. Arrow and Charles and then Ray assisted

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Speaker 1: on this project. Entered a chair into a Museum of

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Speaker 1: Modern Arts nineteen forty one organic Design and Home Furnishings competition,

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Speaker 1: and they won. Even though this chair was technically a failure,

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Speaker 1: they were you know, they realized the reason they love

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Speaker 1: plywood is that they could bend it in two different directions.

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Speaker 2: They won because they found love.

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Speaker 1: Probably so, but you could, you know, you could curve

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Speaker 1: wood pieces that weren't plywood. But what you couldn't do

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Speaker 1: is curve a wood piece and then curve it again

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Speaker 1: in a different direction. Right, But they found that with

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Speaker 1: plywood you basically could. But it was pretty early on

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Speaker 1: in this process. So their chair where the back met

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Speaker 1: the seat would splinter, which is no good. But they

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Speaker 1: ended up covering it in fabric to hide that something

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Speaker 1: that you'll see. They did not like fabric later in

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Speaker 1: their designs. They thought it was sort of old fashioned.

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Speaker 1: It was expensive, and they were trying to make stuff

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Speaker 1: a little more affordable. But they covered this thing and

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Speaker 1: fabric to hide that, and they won the competition. But

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Speaker 1: the chair was even though it won the competition, it

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Speaker 1: was a failure in that it was it could not

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Speaker 1: be mass produced basically as is.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw. Another stage of their plywood bending molding

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Speaker 2: design was that they figured out that they could bend

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Speaker 2: it even further if they cut like a slit in

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Speaker 2: the middle of it.

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Speaker 1: Oh okay, and they would make it.

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Speaker 2: Almost like a keyhole slit, so it looked like a

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Speaker 2: design element, but really it was allowing them to mold

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Speaker 2: it a little further than than before. They were just

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Speaker 2: what they were doing throughout like the late twenties and

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Speaker 2: through the whole thirties and into the forties, they were

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Speaker 2: experimenting with bending plywood to their will, essentially come here plywood. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: so that was I think. Did you say Ray helped

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Speaker 2: on that particular one.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, she worked with them, and that's where they, you know,

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Speaker 1: fell in love.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So Charles and his first wife, Catherine, divorced I

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Speaker 2: think after about eleven or twelve years of marriage, and

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Speaker 2: he went after Ray pretty much immediately after, and they

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Speaker 2: got married in nineteen forty one. And right after they

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Speaker 2: got married in nineteen forty one, they did what any

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Speaker 2: self respecting artist was doing at the time. They looked

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Speaker 2: westward and got into some gelapi or other and drove

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Speaker 2: out to California.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, they're like, forget it, New York, We're going.

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Speaker 2: To La Also, I should say, I'm presuming they drove,

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Speaker 2: but knowing me and the streak I'm on lately, they

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Speaker 2: definitely flew. And everyone knows that they flew except me.

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Speaker 1: Oh come on, So they went to La I'm with you, man.

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Speaker 1: They drove their butts to California.

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Speaker 2: Thanks, Chuck, You're so supportive of me.

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Speaker 1: And I like to like the Beverly Hillbillies. Charles was

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Speaker 1: on top of a rocking chair.

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Speaker 2: Right, and Ray had the shotgun in her lap.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Can you imagine? I mean that setup was very insane.

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Speaker 1: There's a gun in a lap, There's an elderly woman

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Speaker 1: in a rocking chair on top of a truck.

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Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah, but that's the hillbilly way. They don't care.

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Speaker 2: They'll they'll they'll look danger in the face and laugh

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Speaker 2: all the way to California.

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Speaker 1: So they get to California, they started making connections, obviously

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Speaker 1: pretty quickly out there to the southern California modernist scene,

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Speaker 1: which was just getting going pretty hoppin'. A very key

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Speaker 1: person they met and befriended was a guy named John Intenza,

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Speaker 1: who published Arts and Architecture magazine, and they ended up

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Speaker 1: designing twenty six different covers over like a five year period.

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Speaker 1: That's a lot.

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Speaker 2: That's about half.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not a big math guy, but is it

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Speaker 1: a monthly.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, if it was monthly that's sixty issues over that

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Speaker 2: five years, and if they did twenty six, it's almost

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Speaker 2: half of them.

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Speaker 1: As soon as I said was it monthly? I immediately

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Speaker 1: panicked the name that I had just said was Arts

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Speaker 1: and Architecture monthly.

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Speaker 2: No, you did, and it's just Arts and Architecture quarterly.

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Speaker 1: All right, oh quarterly. So they designed a bunch of

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Speaker 1: those covers. Intenza became a big sort of supporter of theirs.

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Speaker 1: And they also met a guy, an architect named Richard Neutra,

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Speaker 1: who said, hey, I designed these killer apartments in Westwoode,

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Speaker 1: the Strathmore apartments, and you should live in one of

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Speaker 1: them because Orson Wells will live there too.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Strathmore makes me think of like some new skyscraper,

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Speaker 2: but it was like a two story house ish structured,

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Speaker 2: I think, divided into three apartments. And they're still on

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Speaker 2: the market these days.

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Speaker 1: So they're very nice looking.

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Speaker 2: They are. They're very cool. So they just started making

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Speaker 2: connections right off the bat, but they weren't really making

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Speaker 2: any money, and Charles ended up well, they were doing

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Speaker 2: two things. They were spending all of their free time

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Speaker 2: working at home in their apartment, which they can burn

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Speaker 2: it into like a working studio bending plywood. There's a

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Speaker 2: legendary machine called the Kazam Machine that no one seems

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Speaker 2: to know exactly how it worked, but they used it

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Speaker 2: to mold plywood. To bend plywood. Part of it involved

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Speaker 2: a heavy balloon and a bicycle pump that would provide

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Speaker 2: the shape that it would be molded against. But somehow

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Speaker 2: it also used electricity. So Charles climbed an electrical pole

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Speaker 2: and tapped into the electricity. Very very unwise thing to do,

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Speaker 2: and luckily he survived. But that's how that's how broke

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Speaker 2: they were. They were stealing electricity to power their Kazam

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Speaker 2: machine in their studio where they were still working on

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Speaker 2: plywood designs.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it used heating coils, so that had to have

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Speaker 1: been what took all of the juice. Sure, and you know,

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Speaker 1: applying heat to bin something is a pretty tried and

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Speaker 1: true method. So I don't know about the air pump

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Speaker 1: the balloon. I can picture, uh huh, but I don't

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Speaker 1: know what that bike pump did it blew up the balloon. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And if you look at the Kazam machine, it's it

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Speaker 1: looks almost like a tique lounge chair that hasn't been

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Speaker 1: finished yet.

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Speaker 2: Exactly exactly. It's dancing right along the line of a

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Speaker 2: wick a wheelchair. So I'm not a big fan of it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I would have come in like a dummy

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Speaker 1: and said, you're trying to design a chair with this thing,

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Speaker 1: look at it. Just sit in it. That's right, You've

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Speaker 1: got your chair.

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Speaker 2: But they called that the Kazam machine as a reference

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Speaker 2: to Alec Kazam, because you would put in like plywood

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Speaker 2: and glue and something magically different would appear.

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Speaker 1: Out Kazam with a exclamation plant. Yeah, sure after kazam,

300
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Speaker 1: not after machine.

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Speaker 2: That's right, although they should have used two and been

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Speaker 2: like Kazam machine.

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Speaker 1: Well, that would conjure something very deadly, so I guess.

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Speaker 3: So.

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Speaker 2: Like I said, they were pretty broke, and Charles ended

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Speaker 2: up taking a job at MGM designing sets. I believe

307
00:15:48,960 --> 00:15:51,480
Speaker 2: could not for life of me find out what films

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Speaker 2: he actually worked on. But while there he was not

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Speaker 2: happy about that. He wrote to a friend that all

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Speaker 2: hope for the future is lost, but I get a

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Speaker 2: regular paycheck. So he was also taking materials that he

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Speaker 2: found from his work back home too, to use in

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Speaker 2: their home studio. But he also made I think a

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Speaker 2: lifelong friend in director Billy Wilder.

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Speaker 1: Yeah and great.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Billy Wilder. Isn't he Chad our director from the

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Speaker 2: Stuff You should Know TV Show's favorite director?

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Speaker 1: Oh?

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Speaker 3: Is he?

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Speaker 2: I think Chad said The Apartment is his favorite movie

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Speaker 2: of all time.

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Speaker 1: It's a great one. That's what our pal Scott Ackerman

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Speaker 1: chose for a movie crush.

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Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, there you go.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, one of the great movies. And Billy Wilder

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Speaker 1: did all kinds of great movies.

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Speaker 2: You had me at Sunset Boulevard, Yeah, exactly. So the

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Speaker 2: em Shase the reason Billy Wilder figures into it, aside

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Speaker 2: from like, wow, there's the name drop right there. The

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Speaker 2: em shase, which is a very famous well shave lounge

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Speaker 2: decked out in leather with like a pillow to go

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Speaker 2: under your caves and everything. It's to me, it looks

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Speaker 2: like what your psychologists would use while they gave you

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Speaker 2: a guy innecological exam. It's like a cross between a

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Speaker 2: couch and your shrink's office and an exam table in

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Speaker 2: your doctor's office.

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Speaker 1: Oh well, just a word of advice if your psychologists

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Speaker 1: trying to give you a gynological kind of logical exam.

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Speaker 2: That's exit stage left. Quickly. Yeah, so, yes, thank you

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Speaker 2: for taking my joke and turning it really dark.

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Speaker 1: Well, you know, I just want to make sure everyone

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Speaker 1: understood clearly.

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Speaker 2: But the reason Billy Wilder inspired the Eames Shays is

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Speaker 2: that he would take naps on sets, and apparently there

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Speaker 2: was one that bless him that Charles Eames witness where

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Speaker 2: Billy Wilder was taking a nap on a six by

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Speaker 2: twelve inch plank that was stood up on two saw horses.

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Speaker 2: That's where he was napping. That's no good, no, So

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Speaker 2: Charles was like, I need to help my friend here.

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Speaker 1: All right. I think that's a good time for a break.

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Speaker 1: You get Billy Wilder asleep in the corner one of

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Speaker 1: those psychologists chases.

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Speaker 2: No, this one's straight. It's not the other one. The

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Speaker 2: curvy one's the lush chaise.

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Speaker 1: Oh really, because I saw the chase was the curvy one.

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Speaker 2: Now there's two. One of the curvy one is called

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Speaker 2: lush chaise. The emshaise, the original em shase is like

358
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Speaker 2: it looks like one of their like aluminum group leather

359
00:18:21,560 --> 00:18:25,600
Speaker 2: upholstered chairs, but laid out essentially flat.

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Speaker 1: Oh Billy Wilder should stuck around.

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Speaker 2: I'm telling you my my description of it was like

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Speaker 2: spot on.

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Speaker 1: In my head, though it made more sense for the

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Speaker 1: Curby one. Your description.

365
00:18:36,040 --> 00:18:38,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess so if you wanted to be really comfortable.

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Speaker 1: All right, we'll take a break and we'll be right back.

367
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Speaker 3: And stub with Joshua John. All right.

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Speaker 1: So World War two rolls around, and this was a

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Speaker 1: bit of a shift for everybody in the world, probably

370
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Speaker 1: but certainly for the Eames family. Southern California is very

371
00:19:27,080 --> 00:19:30,160
Speaker 1: was and still is very big in defense manufacturing, and

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Speaker 1: the military said, hey, this plywood stuff is really something.

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Speaker 2: Have you seen this plywood?

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Speaker 1: We like to you know, it's lightweight, it's you know,

375
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Speaker 1: can be bent in two different directions out here if

376
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Speaker 1: you have a kazam machine and we're into it. And

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Speaker 1: they knew a guy named Wendell Scott, an old friend

378
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Speaker 1: of Charles's, who was a Navy doctor. They got together

379
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Speaker 1: for a visit. He saw this kazam machine and he said,

380
00:19:53,920 --> 00:19:57,080
Speaker 1: wait a minute. We've been using these metal leg splints

381
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Speaker 1: for war and these things are no good that they're

382
00:20:01,280 --> 00:20:04,440
Speaker 1: not good for protection in the field. We need metal

383
00:20:04,480 --> 00:20:07,679
Speaker 1: for other things. And we think that you might be

384
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Speaker 1: able to or I think you might be able to

385
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Speaker 1: build some better wooden splints out of bending plywood.

386
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Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's exactly what they did. They recruited a

387
00:20:16,359 --> 00:20:19,520
Speaker 2: friend that Charles had made an MGM, a theater designer

388
00:20:19,600 --> 00:20:24,240
Speaker 2: named Margaret Harris, and together with them and Intenza, they're

389
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Speaker 2: pretty much their benefactor by this point. In Los Angeles,

390
00:20:28,000 --> 00:20:33,399
Speaker 2: they created a wooden splint for the US Navy that

391
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Speaker 2: was lightweight. It had strategic holes in it that made

392
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Speaker 2: it extra light weight, but also you could run straps

393
00:20:40,280 --> 00:20:43,840
Speaker 2: through to strap the leg to the splint. They were stackable,

394
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Speaker 2: very very important. So it was mass producible, it was

395
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Speaker 2: extremely mobile, it was lightweight, but it also looked kind

396
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Speaker 2: of nice. I mean, as far as leg splints go,

397
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Speaker 2: it's an attractive legs point.

398
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Speaker 3: Yeah.

399
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Speaker 1: It was called the Transportation egg splint. Egg splint, Oh, my.

400
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Speaker 2: Lord, Transportation Egg's Benedict leg splint.

401
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Speaker 1: And they made five thousand. The Navy ordered five thousand

402
00:21:05,000 --> 00:21:07,160
Speaker 1: of these things, so all of a sudden they had

403
00:21:07,200 --> 00:21:08,280
Speaker 1: a little money coming in.

404
00:21:08,400 --> 00:21:11,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, because at ten dollars per that's what they charged. Yeah,

405
00:21:11,840 --> 00:21:14,720
Speaker 2: they could have that'd be a million dollars a million

406
00:21:14,760 --> 00:21:15,440
Speaker 2: dollar order.

407
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Speaker 1: That's a lot of dough.

408
00:21:18,480 --> 00:21:20,280
Speaker 2: And that's not my math. I just went ahead and

409
00:21:20,359 --> 00:21:22,159
Speaker 2: converted it to today's dollars. That's what I.

410
00:21:22,320 --> 00:21:24,800
Speaker 1: Oh, okay, I was about to say, here we go.

411
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Speaker 2: Five thousand times ten is a million.

412
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Speaker 1: So such money that they were able to form a

413
00:21:31,560 --> 00:21:35,800
Speaker 1: company called the Plywood I'm sorry, deply formed wood Company.

414
00:21:36,480 --> 00:21:38,520
Speaker 1: They had a little office in Venice Beach at the time,

415
00:21:39,040 --> 00:21:40,879
Speaker 1: and they sold that thing. They didn't want to be

416
00:21:40,880 --> 00:21:43,080
Speaker 1: in that business, really, so they built it and they

417
00:21:43,119 --> 00:21:45,360
Speaker 1: sold it to a company based out a mission called

418
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Speaker 1: Evans Products. Charles worked there for a little while, headed

419
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Speaker 1: up the molded plywood division. And then the big, big

420
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Speaker 1: change in their life came in nineteen forty three when

421
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Speaker 1: they opened up what they called nine oh one, which

422
00:22:00,200 --> 00:22:03,600
Speaker 1: was their office. It's still there today at nine oh

423
00:22:03,680 --> 00:22:06,159
Speaker 1: one now it's Abbot Kenney Boulevard. Back then it was

424
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Speaker 1: West Washington Boulevard in Venice.

425
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Speaker 2: Gotcha. So, yeah, the leg splint thing was not just

426
00:22:12,400 --> 00:22:14,919
Speaker 2: a little boondoggle we went on. The reason it was

427
00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:17,360
Speaker 2: important was they made a bunch of contexts. They got

428
00:22:17,400 --> 00:22:19,960
Speaker 2: a lot of business experience, they got a little money,

429
00:22:20,160 --> 00:22:23,560
Speaker 2: and they essentially that's what gave them the foundation to

430
00:22:24,480 --> 00:22:27,560
Speaker 2: move up from being broke theater designers who were just

431
00:22:27,640 --> 00:22:32,160
Speaker 2: kind of working in their apartment to legitimate furniture designers

432
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Speaker 2: who now had their own business in office.

433
00:22:34,800 --> 00:22:37,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they got equipment too, and materials they had.

434
00:22:37,320 --> 00:22:39,640
Speaker 1: They were pretty set up there at nine oh one,

435
00:22:39,760 --> 00:22:43,520
Speaker 1: for sure, And if you watch the documentary or just

436
00:22:43,600 --> 00:22:46,879
Speaker 1: know about nine oh one, it was a it was

437
00:22:46,920 --> 00:22:49,040
Speaker 1: a bit of a kind of a crazy wonderland to

438
00:22:49,200 --> 00:22:52,040
Speaker 1: work at. Some of the designers there said it was

439
00:22:52,040 --> 00:22:56,160
Speaker 1: like working at Disneyland. It was fun. There weren't sort

440
00:22:56,200 --> 00:23:01,280
Speaker 1: of regular routines. There weren't stuffy staff meetings. It was

441
00:23:01,400 --> 00:23:04,600
Speaker 1: just one of those places where, you know, long before

442
00:23:05,560 --> 00:23:07,480
Speaker 1: you know, every tech office in the world was like,

443
00:23:07,600 --> 00:23:10,320
Speaker 1: let's have a ping pong table and you know, skittles

444
00:23:10,359 --> 00:23:13,520
Speaker 1: all over the place. They had a sort of a

445
00:23:13,520 --> 00:23:17,280
Speaker 1: classy version of that in nineteen forty three, which was

446
00:23:17,840 --> 00:23:20,640
Speaker 1: not how offices worked back then, even creative offices.

447
00:23:20,800 --> 00:23:22,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, as we'll see. One of the things they're also

448
00:23:22,680 --> 00:23:27,000
Speaker 2: known for is they made a line of toys. And

449
00:23:27,040 --> 00:23:29,679
Speaker 2: the reason they also kind of forade into toys is

450
00:23:29,680 --> 00:23:32,720
Speaker 2: because at least two Charles, but I think also to

451
00:23:32,800 --> 00:23:36,560
Speaker 2: Ray as well. Charles often like gets the quotes, but

452
00:23:36,600 --> 00:23:40,399
Speaker 2: they were in such sink that I assume in a

453
00:23:40,400 --> 00:23:42,960
Speaker 2: lot of cases, Ray probably felt at least similar, if

454
00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:45,399
Speaker 2: not the same. But in this instance, Charles had some

455
00:23:45,520 --> 00:23:50,240
Speaker 2: quote about how play is actually serious business, that that's

456
00:23:50,280 --> 00:23:52,879
Speaker 2: the kind of thing that unlocks curiosity. Just doing an

457
00:23:52,920 --> 00:23:56,919
Speaker 2: activity simply for the activity's sake just kind of resets

458
00:23:56,960 --> 00:23:59,160
Speaker 2: the brain and the mind. So I'm not at all

459
00:23:59,400 --> 00:24:02,200
Speaker 2: surprised to hear that their office was was like that,

460
00:24:02,359 --> 00:24:04,680
Speaker 2: because that's just what they seemed to do. They would

461
00:24:04,760 --> 00:24:06,879
Speaker 2: just do stuff learn by doing all the time.

462
00:24:07,520 --> 00:24:11,240
Speaker 1: Yeah. Another reason they went into things like toys and

463
00:24:11,240 --> 00:24:13,960
Speaker 1: then later filmmaking, as we'll see, is he didn't as

464
00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:15,840
Speaker 1: great as his reputation was. He didn't want to be

465
00:24:16,040 --> 00:24:16,480
Speaker 1: chair guy.

466
00:24:17,200 --> 00:24:18,840
Speaker 2: Sure, plus he really liked toys.

467
00:24:19,840 --> 00:24:21,399
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he's so good at chairs.

468
00:24:21,960 --> 00:24:24,280
Speaker 2: Right. Well, that's the thing, like when you hear the

469
00:24:24,320 --> 00:24:28,320
Speaker 2: word emes like almost probably eighty percent of the time,

470
00:24:28,359 --> 00:24:31,760
Speaker 2: if not more, the next word is chair. Yeah, because

471
00:24:31,840 --> 00:24:35,000
Speaker 2: the chairs that they designed are so iconic and the

472
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:36,959
Speaker 2: first one that they hit the market with. So they

473
00:24:37,000 --> 00:24:41,120
Speaker 2: opened the office in nineteen forty three. By nineteen forty six,

474
00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:43,679
Speaker 2: they had a chair in mass production. At first with

475
00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:46,359
Speaker 2: that Evans products. But eventually Evans is like, we don't

476
00:24:46,400 --> 00:24:47,960
Speaker 2: really know what we're doing. We're more of the leg

477
00:24:48,000 --> 00:24:51,000
Speaker 2: splint producers. Maybe you guy should talk to Herman Miller.

478
00:24:51,560 --> 00:24:52,479
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's what they did.

479
00:24:52,560 --> 00:24:55,800
Speaker 2: They came up with the Eames Chair would, the ECW.

480
00:24:56,040 --> 00:24:59,679
Speaker 2: Nowadays it's called the LCW the lounge chair would and

481
00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:05,000
Speaker 2: it's molded bent plywood on a plywood base and it

482
00:25:05,080 --> 00:25:08,800
Speaker 2: is gorgeous and it's actually super comfortable without a lick

483
00:25:08,840 --> 00:25:09,680
Speaker 2: of padding on it.

484
00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:13,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's you know, they figured out if you mold

485
00:25:13,240 --> 00:25:16,199
Speaker 1: something just right to where the human body can function

486
00:25:16,240 --> 00:25:18,560
Speaker 1: well in it. And they were into form, but they

487
00:25:18,840 --> 00:25:22,719
Speaker 1: were very much into function. They did not want some weird,

488
00:25:22,760 --> 00:25:26,680
Speaker 1: fancy looking thing that's not fun or comfortable to sit on. Ever.

489
00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:29,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, Ray had a quote and I assumed Charles probably

490
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:32,879
Speaker 2: felt the same way, is that what works is better

491
00:25:32,920 --> 00:25:35,680
Speaker 2: than what looks good. The looks can change, but what

492
00:25:35,800 --> 00:25:39,720
Speaker 2: works works, and there's a ton of wisdom in there.

493
00:25:40,040 --> 00:25:43,720
Speaker 1: That was actually Ray, That's what I said. Oh, oh oh, okay,

494
00:25:43,800 --> 00:25:44,560
Speaker 1: I didn't get the joke.

495
00:25:44,640 --> 00:25:46,880
Speaker 2: I've made a reference to the joke where I went

496
00:25:46,920 --> 00:25:50,720
Speaker 2: on some horrible tangent earlier about Yeah, I was about

497
00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:52,720
Speaker 2: to do it again. So thank you for saving everyone.

498
00:25:53,359 --> 00:25:56,280
Speaker 1: So Herman Miller you mentioned, this is a big deal

499
00:25:56,320 --> 00:26:00,480
Speaker 1: because the Herman Miller company out of Michigan was great

500
00:26:00,520 --> 00:26:05,200
Speaker 1: at making furniture. They were producing modernist furniture. Oh boy,

501
00:26:05,240 --> 00:26:08,040
Speaker 1: did we already have a big mistake with Charles Nelson?

502
00:26:08,560 --> 00:26:12,240
Speaker 2: I don't know. I guess maybe maybe I said Charles.

503
00:26:11,920 --> 00:26:14,000
Speaker 1: All right, Well, George Nelson is who we're talking about,

504
00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:18,920
Speaker 1: very iconic designer. In fact, in my little studio here,

505
00:26:19,440 --> 00:26:21,160
Speaker 1: I'm looking at a George Nelson clock.

506
00:26:21,520 --> 00:26:22,160
Speaker 2: Which one.

507
00:26:23,480 --> 00:26:25,399
Speaker 1: The one that is rounded wood?

508
00:26:27,600 --> 00:26:29,879
Speaker 2: Yeah, like the balls on the end, the ball clock.

509
00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:34,520
Speaker 1: I mean it's like someone took a round ball made

510
00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:38,639
Speaker 1: of wood and then sliced the first third of it

511
00:26:38,720 --> 00:26:41,040
Speaker 1: off and that's a clock face.

512
00:26:41,119 --> 00:26:43,680
Speaker 2: I got you, Okay, Yeah, we have the eye clock.

513
00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:46,160
Speaker 1: The eye clock. I think I know which one you're

514
00:26:46,160 --> 00:26:46,560
Speaker 1: talking about.

515
00:26:46,560 --> 00:26:49,640
Speaker 2: It it looks like an eye and the like the numbers.

516
00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:52,000
Speaker 2: It doesn't have numbers, but you know, like the little

517
00:26:52,040 --> 00:26:54,479
Speaker 2: lines that go to the numbers. It has those, but

518
00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:58,160
Speaker 2: they're in some crazy, weird spread out positions, but they

519
00:26:58,240 --> 00:27:01,880
Speaker 2: still keep time. It's really amazing. But yeah, George Nelson's

520
00:27:01,960 --> 00:27:05,240
Speaker 2: very well known for creating a lot of super fifties clocks.

521
00:27:05,560 --> 00:27:07,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think any of his clocks had numbers,

522
00:27:07,760 --> 00:27:09,800
Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken, because he was kind of like,

523
00:27:10,359 --> 00:27:13,040
Speaker 1: you don't need a number if you know what o'clock

524
00:27:13,119 --> 00:27:15,760
Speaker 1: looks like and how to read it. Yeah, And you

525
00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:17,520
Speaker 1: know that's another reason this one's fun for us, because

526
00:27:17,560 --> 00:27:18,920
Speaker 1: both of us love this stuff.

527
00:27:19,119 --> 00:27:22,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, So for George Nelson, go look up Nelson clocks,

528
00:27:23,160 --> 00:27:26,600
Speaker 2: look up Nelson bubble lamps. Probably seen those before. The

529
00:27:26,680 --> 00:27:31,000
Speaker 2: Nelson platform bench and then the swag leg desk. Those

530
00:27:31,040 --> 00:27:33,800
Speaker 2: are some of his best designs. But in addition to

531
00:27:33,840 --> 00:27:36,080
Speaker 2: being a designer himself, he also he was one of

532
00:27:36,119 --> 00:27:39,840
Speaker 2: those A plus people who recruited other A plus people

533
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:42,439
Speaker 2: to work with him. Yeah, and one of the groups

534
00:27:42,440 --> 00:27:46,080
Speaker 2: of A plus people he recruited were the emes, and

535
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:50,720
Speaker 2: they started working with George Nelson at Herman Miller essentially

536
00:27:50,800 --> 00:27:55,720
Speaker 2: as like independent contractors, just probably exclusively sending their designs

537
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:57,200
Speaker 2: to Herman Miller to be produced.

538
00:27:57,760 --> 00:27:59,920
Speaker 1: That's right, And could you imagine if we didn't have

539
00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:03,960
Speaker 1: little slip ups, we've never gotten to Charles Nilson, Riley sidebar.

540
00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:07,959
Speaker 2: Man you just found the silver lining to that thousand emails.

541
00:28:09,400 --> 00:28:12,560
Speaker 1: So and that's a good lesson to people to never

542
00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:14,560
Speaker 1: stop the podcast right in the middle to email us

543
00:28:14,600 --> 00:28:19,119
Speaker 1: a correction. Sometimes we catch things. So they're working together

544
00:28:19,200 --> 00:28:22,920
Speaker 1: now they're working for Herman Miller. This is a sort

545
00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:25,600
Speaker 1: of a match made in heaven because they had the

546
00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:29,160
Speaker 1: smarts and the experience to like mass produce and pump

547
00:28:29,160 --> 00:28:32,320
Speaker 1: out these great designs. On Herman Miller side, they had

548
00:28:32,320 --> 00:28:36,199
Speaker 1: these amazing designers now working for them, and they, like

549
00:28:36,240 --> 00:28:38,160
Speaker 1: you said, you know, from the beginning they were trying

550
00:28:38,160 --> 00:28:41,160
Speaker 1: to create these sort of simple, stylish but you know,

551
00:28:41,280 --> 00:28:44,560
Speaker 1: practical pieces and as we'll see, you know, things that

552
00:28:44,600 --> 00:28:48,080
Speaker 1: would end up going in schools and bus stations and

553
00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:48,680
Speaker 1: stuff like.

554
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:51,080
Speaker 2: That and airports. So if you go to an airport

555
00:28:51,120 --> 00:28:54,600
Speaker 2: today and you see like that long row of chairs

556
00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:56,680
Speaker 2: that you just sit in while you're waiting at the gate,

557
00:28:57,000 --> 00:28:59,960
Speaker 2: and they're all connected by metal. They have a leather back,

558
00:29:00,360 --> 00:29:04,840
Speaker 2: a leather seat in two you know arms. That's that's

559
00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:08,320
Speaker 2: an EMES design there the air I can't remember the

560
00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:11,480
Speaker 2: sling Group chair is what they're called. And they're still

561
00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:14,680
Speaker 2: in production. So if it's not an actual legitimate emes. Yeah,

562
00:29:15,520 --> 00:29:18,360
Speaker 2: set of chairs, it's a knockoff of it. That's how

563
00:29:18,480 --> 00:29:22,720
Speaker 2: ubiquitous there stuff is. It was like everywhere, like most

564
00:29:22,760 --> 00:29:24,360
Speaker 2: of the stuff we're talking about. If you can't bring

565
00:29:24,360 --> 00:29:26,640
Speaker 2: it to mine, I will bet that if you go

566
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:29,240
Speaker 2: look it up, yeah, probably seen it before.

567
00:29:29,800 --> 00:29:32,720
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean their stuff is either literally all over

568
00:29:32,760 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 1: the place or just in spirit in a lot of places.

569
00:29:37,040 --> 00:29:41,520
Speaker 1: Just ubiquitous in America, yeah for sure. Maybe elsewhere, but

570
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:42,800
Speaker 1: I don't I don't get to travel much.

571
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:45,920
Speaker 2: I know, I haven't traveled that much either. It's always

572
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:46,400
Speaker 2: for tour.

573
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:52,440
Speaker 1: For Ray's side, she was an amazing artist, a great painter.

574
00:29:53,880 --> 00:29:57,240
Speaker 1: She ended up working, you know, in adding a lot

575
00:29:57,240 --> 00:30:00,160
Speaker 1: of fun and design elements to the things that were happening.

576
00:30:01,240 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 1: If you watch a documentary, you definitely get the sense

577
00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:06,360
Speaker 1: that she she's the one that kind of held it

578
00:30:06,400 --> 00:30:10,600
Speaker 1: all together. She had a great attention to detail. So

579
00:30:10,840 --> 00:30:14,719
Speaker 1: like as far as the company, you know, functioning as

580
00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:16,880
Speaker 1: a as a company and not just a funhouse of

581
00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:19,880
Speaker 1: like kids designing things. You know, as far as the

582
00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:22,960
Speaker 1: staff goes, she kind of kept things on the rails

583
00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:27,280
Speaker 1: and also provided a lot of fun and color and

584
00:30:27,440 --> 00:30:31,680
Speaker 1: textural detail and you know, if you watch interviews you

585
00:30:31,680 --> 00:30:34,200
Speaker 1: know with them over the years on YouTube, she's always

586
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:37,520
Speaker 1: standing behind Charles, of course, and she doesn't say much

587
00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:40,400
Speaker 1: on camera. It's always him and his name is the

588
00:30:40,400 --> 00:30:42,840
Speaker 1: one that's up there, and it gets a little frustrating,

589
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:45,840
Speaker 1: but it was the fact of the matter is it

590
00:30:45,880 --> 00:30:48,440
Speaker 1: was just a time in the nineteen fifties where even

591
00:30:48,480 --> 00:30:50,600
Speaker 1: though Charles would say things like anything I can do,

592
00:30:50,720 --> 00:30:54,920
Speaker 1: Ray can do better than me. It's just how it was.

593
00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:57,440
Speaker 1: Then she took a bit of a back seat unfortunately.

594
00:30:57,760 --> 00:31:00,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, and yeah, there's no other way to put it.

595
00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:02,959
Speaker 2: It's just how it was. There's a very famous clip

596
00:31:02,960 --> 00:31:06,160
Speaker 2: of them on an NBC show called Home that was

597
00:31:06,200 --> 00:31:09,880
Speaker 2: hosted by the actress Arlene Francis, And in this clip,

598
00:31:09,920 --> 00:31:12,920
Speaker 2: it's like I think nine or eleven minute like segment

599
00:31:12,960 --> 00:31:16,120
Speaker 2: on the show. Yeah, they actually debuted, Yeah it is.

600
00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:19,040
Speaker 2: They debuted one of their famous chairs, which we'll talk

601
00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:22,680
Speaker 2: about in the second, the Eames lounge chair. But Arlene

602
00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:28,000
Speaker 2: Francis is even like almost cattily dismissive of Ray, and

603
00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:30,440
Speaker 2: Ray is just sitting there likes has to have a

604
00:31:30,440 --> 00:31:32,640
Speaker 2: big smile on her face, because that's what you're expected

605
00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:35,240
Speaker 2: to do. But she was just sidelined, just pushed to

606
00:31:35,280 --> 00:31:38,560
Speaker 2: the side in this interview. Despite yeah, over the years,

607
00:31:38,560 --> 00:31:40,680
Speaker 2: like Charles just being like, no, this this, this one's

608
00:31:40,720 --> 00:31:43,360
Speaker 2: not behind me, she's right next to me, Like we're equals,

609
00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:46,720
Speaker 2: we're partners where you do this together. The society was

610
00:31:46,760 --> 00:31:48,600
Speaker 2: just like, that's that's not true stuff.

611
00:31:48,680 --> 00:31:52,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's kind of like I'm paraphrasing, but the overall

612
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:55,200
Speaker 1: vibe was in the brief time she was allowed to speak,

613
00:31:55,280 --> 00:31:57,360
Speaker 1: was tell me how you support your husband that kind

614
00:31:57,400 --> 00:32:03,000
Speaker 1: of thing exactly. Yeah. So they're making all kinds of

615
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:09,120
Speaker 1: things collapsible sofas, fiberglass shell chairs, those were very, very famous.

616
00:32:09,120 --> 00:32:11,400
Speaker 1: If you look up there and I think this one

617
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:15,680
Speaker 1: wont to Design Award for moment as well. In nineteen

618
00:32:15,760 --> 00:32:21,360
Speaker 1: fifty there molded fiberglass armchair. Look that thing up and

619
00:32:21,480 --> 00:32:23,520
Speaker 1: you'll say, oh that chair.

620
00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:26,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, the one that I've sat in in every school

621
00:32:26,240 --> 00:32:29,920
Speaker 2: cafeteria ever at the bus station. Like if you see

622
00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:33,280
Speaker 2: like a seat that's plastic and kind of molded to

623
00:32:33,320 --> 00:32:37,480
Speaker 2: fit your form, that was the Eames fiberglass armchair.

624
00:32:38,000 --> 00:32:43,080
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, And again songs upholstery, they would end up

625
00:32:43,160 --> 00:32:45,080
Speaker 1: using leather, as we'll see here in a second. But

626
00:32:45,800 --> 00:32:49,640
Speaker 1: most of this early stuff was like aluminum molded fiberglass

627
00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:54,360
Speaker 1: and don't forget plywood, plastic, plywood, wire mesh stuff like that.

628
00:32:54,760 --> 00:32:58,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, which, to me, that's what I don't like about

629
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:01,360
Speaker 2: their design. It has too much of an industrial flavor,

630
00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:04,080
Speaker 2: which is exactly what they're going for. They were trying

631
00:33:04,120 --> 00:33:06,080
Speaker 2: to show like, you can you can come up with

632
00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:10,800
Speaker 2: beautiful design that's affordable using mass produced, you know, materials,

633
00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:12,800
Speaker 2: and so that's what they were doing. But it just

634
00:33:12,840 --> 00:33:15,520
Speaker 2: looks a little industrial to me. And then it has

635
00:33:15,560 --> 00:33:19,840
Speaker 2: that veneer of like fifty years, which makes industrial products

636
00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:24,920
Speaker 2: like somehow creepy. So some of their actual vintage stuff

637
00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:27,360
Speaker 2: I'm not crazy about. But there's a really cute segment

638
00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:31,600
Speaker 2: on Antique's road Show if you want to see one

639
00:33:31,640 --> 00:33:34,240
Speaker 2: of the EMES storage units, one of their earliest ones,

640
00:33:34,720 --> 00:33:37,920
Speaker 2: if you look up Herman Miller storage unit Fort Worth,

641
00:33:38,880 --> 00:33:41,600
Speaker 2: there's like a five or six minute segment where this

642
00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:44,360
Speaker 2: woman is told that something she paid fifteen dollars for

643
00:33:44,480 --> 00:33:47,760
Speaker 2: is worth like twenty thousand dollars. Oh wow, I love

644
00:33:47,800 --> 00:33:48,720
Speaker 2: Antiques Roadshow.

645
00:33:49,280 --> 00:33:51,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great show. And another thing that was

646
00:33:51,760 --> 00:33:54,640
Speaker 1: great about their designs with these chairs in particulars that

647
00:33:54,680 --> 00:33:57,440
Speaker 1: they were stackable. I think they may have learned from

648
00:33:57,440 --> 00:34:01,400
Speaker 1: that egg splint that if you make something stackable, that

649
00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:03,959
Speaker 1: that's very handy if you have to clear a cafeteria

650
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:07,600
Speaker 1: for a school play or dodgeball.

651
00:34:06,560 --> 00:34:13,279
Speaker 2: Right exactly. So that was their their genuinely affordable breakthrough,

652
00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:15,279
Speaker 2: and they actually kind of, from what I can tell,

653
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:19,719
Speaker 2: left molded plywood largely behind. That's not entirely true, but

654
00:34:19,760 --> 00:34:23,920
Speaker 2: they really went, you know, full bore on molded fiberglass

655
00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:26,440
Speaker 2: and then plastic because it really did fulfill a lot

656
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:30,120
Speaker 2: of the service their purposes they wanted, including affordability. Like

657
00:34:30,160 --> 00:34:33,000
Speaker 2: that first chair of theirs, Time magazine named it the

658
00:34:33,120 --> 00:34:35,879
Speaker 2: chair of the century. Before the century, it was even

659
00:34:35,920 --> 00:34:38,560
Speaker 2: halfway through, Like that's how much of a splash it made.

660
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:41,440
Speaker 2: And they were making it for like the average person

661
00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:44,279
Speaker 2: to be able to buy. But it was still in

662
00:34:44,320 --> 00:34:47,080
Speaker 2: today's dollars, like a five hundred and twenty five dollars

663
00:34:47,120 --> 00:34:50,319
Speaker 2: like single chair, you know what I mean, So it

664
00:34:50,360 --> 00:34:53,120
Speaker 2: wasn't exactly affordable. When they started to get into fiberglass

665
00:34:53,120 --> 00:34:55,640
Speaker 2: and plastic, then they were making chairs that the average

666
00:34:55,640 --> 00:34:56,520
Speaker 2: person could afford.

667
00:34:57,080 --> 00:34:59,520
Speaker 1: I wonder if like when they made that announcement. How

668
00:34:59,560 --> 00:35:04,120
Speaker 1: many chair designers and builders were just like, well, what's

669
00:35:04,200 --> 00:35:08,560
Speaker 1: the point and just threw their chair into the fireplace.

670
00:35:08,280 --> 00:35:10,439
Speaker 2: Like I guess I'll go into toys. Damn it. They're

671
00:35:10,440 --> 00:35:11,359
Speaker 2: into toys too.

672
00:35:12,680 --> 00:35:15,640
Speaker 1: So you said they moved away from plywood, but not

673
00:35:15,760 --> 00:35:20,960
Speaker 1: before this iconic chair that you mentioned briefly earlier.

674
00:35:21,040 --> 00:35:22,680
Speaker 2: That's why I corrected myself.

675
00:35:22,680 --> 00:35:26,920
Speaker 1: The Eames lounge, which was molded plywood. It was fabric.

676
00:35:26,960 --> 00:35:29,000
Speaker 1: The very first one that was introduced on that show

677
00:35:29,120 --> 00:35:33,920
Speaker 1: was rosewood, plywood and black leather. And this is the

678
00:35:33,960 --> 00:35:36,480
Speaker 1: one that made them famous. It came with an ottoman

679
00:35:36,719 --> 00:35:38,000
Speaker 1: or I guess. I don't even know if you had

680
00:35:38,040 --> 00:35:42,879
Speaker 1: to buy it separately back then, but it was. It's

681
00:35:42,920 --> 00:35:45,719
Speaker 1: a gorgeous chair. I mean, they're the ones they sit

682
00:35:45,760 --> 00:35:52,239
Speaker 1: on on Shark Tank. They are copied heavily. I imagine the

683
00:35:52,320 --> 00:35:56,200
Speaker 1: knockoffs are not nearly as good. But I don't own one,

684
00:35:56,239 --> 00:35:58,520
Speaker 1: but I've always wonted one, and I think one day

685
00:35:58,520 --> 00:35:59,959
Speaker 1: I might have to splash down for one.

686
00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:03,960
Speaker 2: There's this one that I covet that was owned by

687
00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:08,319
Speaker 2: orvile Reddenbacher, which just somehow makes it even more like

688
00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:09,759
Speaker 2: mid century. Amazing.

689
00:36:09,840 --> 00:36:12,160
Speaker 1: Do you imagine eating popcorn in that thing? Watching a movie?

690
00:36:12,239 --> 00:36:14,960
Speaker 2: So yeah, there's this guy who is, like, you know,

691
00:36:15,160 --> 00:36:19,600
Speaker 2: he refurbished an Atomic Ranch, or it's on the magazine,

692
00:36:19,600 --> 00:36:22,279
Speaker 2: the internet magazine Atomic Ranch. But that kind of like

693
00:36:22,400 --> 00:36:25,640
Speaker 2: mid century space age house he refurbished, and he has

694
00:36:25,719 --> 00:36:30,440
Speaker 2: that orval Reddenbocker knockoff. It's actually a knockoff of the

695
00:36:30,480 --> 00:36:32,600
Speaker 2: Eames lounge. He has it, and he said they eat

696
00:36:32,600 --> 00:36:34,040
Speaker 2: popcorn in it.

697
00:36:34,200 --> 00:36:34,640
Speaker 1: Amazing.

698
00:36:34,840 --> 00:36:36,640
Speaker 2: I think so too, And I don't know why. I

699
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:38,279
Speaker 2: don't even know how I first heard about it, but

700
00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:40,840
Speaker 2: I covet that particular chair. It's great.

701
00:36:41,840 --> 00:36:45,440
Speaker 1: You know, one day, Josh, I'm gonna really roode for

702
00:36:45,440 --> 00:36:46,160
Speaker 1: you to get that chair.

703
00:36:46,320 --> 00:36:51,000
Speaker 2: Thank you. I can't wait till that day starts. Let's

704
00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:53,880
Speaker 2: talk about that chair a little bit. Oh sure, okay,

705
00:36:53,920 --> 00:36:59,040
Speaker 2: well here I go. So the chair itself was different.

706
00:36:59,120 --> 00:37:00,840
Speaker 2: It was multiplied with like you said, but it was

707
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:03,000
Speaker 2: upholstered in leather like I think also you said. But

708
00:37:03,040 --> 00:37:06,480
Speaker 2: it was meant to be exceedingly comfortable. And the way

709
00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:10,000
Speaker 2: that Charles Putt is supposed to have the warm, receptive

710
00:37:10,040 --> 00:37:14,480
Speaker 2: look of a well used first Baseman's Myt, which definitely

711
00:37:14,480 --> 00:37:17,680
Speaker 2: gets that across. No, they're super duper comfortable, especially if

712
00:37:17,719 --> 00:37:22,279
Speaker 2: you remind yourself like I'm actually sitting on polster plywood here, right.

713
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:26,960
Speaker 2: They have become so iconic and so associated with the

714
00:37:28,160 --> 00:37:33,040
Speaker 2: mid century modern aesthetic, and in particular it's almost like

715
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:36,680
Speaker 2: a signal or a code for someone who is powerful

716
00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:40,840
Speaker 2: captain of industry. Like it's like a mover and a

717
00:37:40,880 --> 00:37:43,440
Speaker 2: shaker of that era if you're doing like a period piece,

718
00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:47,120
Speaker 2: so much so that when is it. Matthew Wiener, who

719
00:37:47,160 --> 00:37:54,359
Speaker 2: is the showrunner for mad Men Winer weinerslov He said,

720
00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:57,359
Speaker 2: We're not using the Eames lounge in our show. It's

721
00:37:57,440 --> 00:38:00,560
Speaker 2: just such a cliche. It shows up everywhere, and mad

722
00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:02,279
Speaker 2: Men is like, of course it's going to show up

723
00:38:02,320 --> 00:38:04,839
Speaker 2: in mad Men. So was he very wisely was like, Nope,

724
00:38:04,840 --> 00:38:07,160
Speaker 2: we're not doing that. But he went with a different

725
00:38:07,200 --> 00:38:11,799
Speaker 2: Eam set, the Emes Aluminum group, which is equally cool.

726
00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:12,839
Speaker 1: But in a different way.

727
00:38:13,360 --> 00:38:13,600
Speaker 2: Yeah.

728
00:38:13,680 --> 00:38:15,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, I definitely like the other one better. But this

729
00:38:15,680 --> 00:38:19,000
Speaker 1: was more of an office chair. You've seen it before

730
00:38:19,040 --> 00:38:21,719
Speaker 1: as well, no padding on the arms, but it was

731
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:27,960
Speaker 1: it's like a ribbed, ribbed leather. I promise you look

732
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:30,400
Speaker 1: this thing up and you'll go, oh, that thing exactly

733
00:38:30,680 --> 00:38:33,480
Speaker 1: that held Don Draper's butt for however many years.

734
00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:36,719
Speaker 2: And also, I mean, depending on how hip your workplaces,

735
00:38:36,760 --> 00:38:39,800
Speaker 2: you might have a knockoff of this in your office.

736
00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:43,560
Speaker 2: Like it's really that's something that happens in design a lot.

737
00:38:43,800 --> 00:38:47,320
Speaker 2: Somebody comes up with an iconic design and then everybody

738
00:38:47,440 --> 00:38:51,200
Speaker 2: rips it off. That's just the part of the industry.

739
00:38:51,719 --> 00:38:57,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, I feel like that's another breakpoint. Yeah yeah,

740
00:38:57,480 --> 00:38:59,960
Speaker 1: all right, hepcat. We're going to be right back at

741
00:39:00,200 --> 00:39:17,040
Speaker 1: this and josh will pick up after the break with toys,

742
00:39:17,560 --> 00:39:22,200
Speaker 1: learn and stuff with Joshua John stuff.

743
00:39:22,239 --> 00:39:38,200
Speaker 3: You shine up, all right, Chuck.

744
00:39:38,480 --> 00:39:41,760
Speaker 2: Let's talk toys, because, like I said, they considered play

745
00:39:42,640 --> 00:39:45,040
Speaker 2: serious business because of what it could do to unlock you.

746
00:39:45,080 --> 00:39:48,560
Speaker 2: And they were playful people for sure. Yeah, before we

747
00:39:48,840 --> 00:39:51,560
Speaker 2: talk about toys, let's put that on the back burner

748
00:39:51,560 --> 00:39:54,560
Speaker 2: for a second and talk about their architecture work, because

749
00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:58,160
Speaker 2: remember Charles was a crypto pseudo architect for a while,

750
00:39:58,360 --> 00:40:01,759
Speaker 2: an outlaw architect, I guess, yeah, And this was an

751
00:40:01,800 --> 00:40:07,319
Speaker 2: age where you could work with other amazing designers in architects.

752
00:40:07,640 --> 00:40:11,920
Speaker 2: And remember they were friends already with aerosaranin So they

753
00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:15,320
Speaker 2: worked with him on at least one house called case

754
00:40:15,600 --> 00:40:19,360
Speaker 2: Study House number nine, and that's a pretty famous house,

755
00:40:19,440 --> 00:40:22,479
Speaker 2: but it is nothing compared to Case Study House number eight,

756
00:40:22,680 --> 00:40:25,640
Speaker 2: which is in fact the house that Ray and Charles

757
00:40:25,719 --> 00:40:27,799
Speaker 2: Eames designed and ended up living in.

758
00:40:28,640 --> 00:40:32,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, the case Study Houses. We'll say what it is.

759
00:40:32,239 --> 00:40:34,680
Speaker 1: But I've had this on my list for like ten

760
00:40:34,760 --> 00:40:35,319
Speaker 1: years to do.

761
00:40:35,520 --> 00:40:36,359
Speaker 2: Oh it's so neat.

762
00:40:36,800 --> 00:40:37,239
Speaker 3: Took it in.

763
00:40:37,840 --> 00:40:40,440
Speaker 1: It's beautiful, But what to that house?

764
00:40:40,600 --> 00:40:41,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really neat.

765
00:40:42,680 --> 00:40:46,480
Speaker 1: But the Case Study program was a program sponsored by

766
00:40:46,600 --> 00:40:52,520
Speaker 1: Art and Architecture magazine where they built these houses. I

767
00:40:52,520 --> 00:40:55,759
Speaker 1: think there were thirty six designs, not just the Eames,

768
00:40:55,960 --> 00:40:59,040
Speaker 1: all sorts of architects. Right over the course of like

769
00:40:59,320 --> 00:41:03,680
Speaker 1: twenty one years, they built twenty six of these houses,

770
00:41:04,120 --> 00:41:08,840
Speaker 1: and eighteen of them are still as is a handful

771
00:41:08,880 --> 00:41:12,560
Speaker 1: of being destroyed, which is awful. Yea, and maybe more

772
00:41:12,600 --> 00:41:15,160
Speaker 1: awful a handful of them when you look up, like

773
00:41:15,239 --> 00:41:22,040
Speaker 1: the list says something like, you know, renovated. I'm paraphrasing

774
00:41:22,040 --> 00:41:25,359
Speaker 1: to a country renovated so much that you can't even

775
00:41:25,360 --> 00:41:26,560
Speaker 1: tell it's what it was.

776
00:41:26,680 --> 00:41:29,200
Speaker 2: Gotcha, Yeah, for sure, But we're going.

777
00:41:29,120 --> 00:41:31,200
Speaker 1: To do one on the case study houses in that program.

778
00:41:31,360 --> 00:41:33,879
Speaker 1: It was pretty amazing. But out of this came case

779
00:41:33,920 --> 00:41:36,600
Speaker 1: Study eight, where like you said, the Ames lived in

780
00:41:36,640 --> 00:41:40,560
Speaker 1: the Pacific Palisades. It was initially called the Bridge House

781
00:41:40,640 --> 00:41:43,880
Speaker 1: because it was going to be cantilevered out over this

782
00:41:43,920 --> 00:41:46,839
Speaker 1: big grassy meadow toward the sea because you could see

783
00:41:46,840 --> 00:41:50,480
Speaker 1: the ocean there. And Charles at one point reconsidered along

784
00:41:50,480 --> 00:41:52,439
Speaker 1: with Ray, and they said, hey, we're doing that thing

785
00:41:53,400 --> 00:41:55,920
Speaker 1: that you're not supposed to do an architecture, which is

786
00:41:55,960 --> 00:41:59,719
Speaker 1: take this beautiful area and just like plunk a house

787
00:41:59,760 --> 00:42:02,319
Speaker 1: down in the middle of it. And he fell in

788
00:42:02,320 --> 00:42:05,239
Speaker 1: love with that meadow and he decided to change the

789
00:42:05,280 --> 00:42:07,839
Speaker 1: complete design of it instead of cantilevering it out over

790
00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:11,920
Speaker 1: this meadow, make the meadow this big beautiful front yard basically,

791
00:42:12,520 --> 00:42:14,759
Speaker 1: and they came up with they scrapped the Ridge House

792
00:42:14,800 --> 00:42:17,680
Speaker 1: and came up with the design for number eight, which

793
00:42:17,760 --> 00:42:24,120
Speaker 1: was this very beautiful, square, flat roofed, colorful, amazing house.

794
00:42:24,520 --> 00:42:27,279
Speaker 2: Yeah. So apparently Ray was a fan of Mandria. And

795
00:42:27,560 --> 00:42:31,239
Speaker 2: you can tell because these are two giant squares made

796
00:42:31,239 --> 00:42:34,480
Speaker 2: of glass and steel, and then they have panels in

797
00:42:34,520 --> 00:42:37,600
Speaker 2: some places where you might have a window, and those

798
00:42:37,640 --> 00:42:40,200
Speaker 2: panels would be colored like yellow or blue or red

799
00:42:40,280 --> 00:42:44,720
Speaker 2: or white like a Mandria painting. But they were the ones.

800
00:42:45,239 --> 00:42:46,600
Speaker 2: I don't know if this house is the one that

801
00:42:46,640 --> 00:42:51,400
Speaker 2: introduced it. It's possible. The idea of like soaring ceilings,

802
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:55,279
Speaker 2: of huge open space floor plans, it was like a

803
00:42:55,360 --> 00:42:58,839
Speaker 2: it's a modernist masterpiece. But one of the things that's

804
00:42:58,840 --> 00:43:03,960
Speaker 2: so great about it is that Ray decorated it to

805
00:43:04,040 --> 00:43:10,279
Speaker 2: the hilt with art objects, gifts from friends, paintings, sculptures,

806
00:43:10,360 --> 00:43:14,600
Speaker 2: folk art, weavings, everything you can think of. It was

807
00:43:14,680 --> 00:43:18,280
Speaker 2: just such a busy room. There's like leopard skin rugs

808
00:43:18,320 --> 00:43:22,360
Speaker 2: and just weird stuff everywhere. And this was entirely counter

809
00:43:22,440 --> 00:43:24,160
Speaker 2: to the trend at the time, which was if you

810
00:43:24,239 --> 00:43:27,399
Speaker 2: were modernist, you're also minimalist. There in yeah, you can't

811
00:43:27,440 --> 00:43:30,120
Speaker 2: extract one from the other, and she did, and that

812
00:43:30,239 --> 00:43:33,080
Speaker 2: was a huge contribution to modernism because a lot of

813
00:43:33,120 --> 00:43:36,520
Speaker 2: people are turned off, including me, are turned off by minimalism, like,

814
00:43:36,640 --> 00:43:39,359
Speaker 2: can't stand it. It's an awful, awful way to live,

815
00:43:39,400 --> 00:43:41,640
Speaker 2: I think, And she was like, hey, you can be

816
00:43:41,800 --> 00:43:46,680
Speaker 2: modernists and not be minimalist, you know. So she's credited

817
00:43:46,760 --> 00:43:51,120
Speaker 2: with that as being probably her greatest contribution, solo contribution

818
00:43:51,239 --> 00:43:55,000
Speaker 2: to modernism is the design choices she made in that house.

819
00:43:55,600 --> 00:43:59,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, whimsical and warm. I love it. It's pretty amazing.

820
00:43:59,400 --> 00:44:01,960
Speaker 1: Like you said, they all did case study house number

821
00:44:02,040 --> 00:44:05,800
Speaker 1: nine on the same lot as number eight. Intinda himself

822
00:44:06,120 --> 00:44:09,799
Speaker 1: would live in number nine, and he also designed his

823
00:44:09,840 --> 00:44:12,640
Speaker 1: old buddy Billy Wilder's house. He said, Hey, I love

824
00:44:12,680 --> 00:44:16,560
Speaker 1: that that flat board that you gussied up for me.

825
00:44:17,320 --> 00:44:20,480
Speaker 1: Can you make me a flat house? And he said sure.

826
00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:24,000
Speaker 1: And so this house in Beverly Hills, where Billy Wilder

827
00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:28,080
Speaker 1: and his wife Audrey Young lived, is another gorgeous, you know,

828
00:44:28,239 --> 00:44:32,040
Speaker 1: flat roofed, sort of square, boxy, brilliant design.

829
00:44:32,160 --> 00:44:35,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very cool. And they also planned eucalyptus trees

830
00:44:35,560 --> 00:44:38,640
Speaker 2: all around it, and I think at least on one

831
00:44:38,680 --> 00:44:41,399
Speaker 2: of them, there's swings that you can swing on when

832
00:44:41,400 --> 00:44:44,440
Speaker 2: you're there. When we went, we didn't we just showed up.

833
00:44:44,480 --> 00:44:46,319
Speaker 2: We didn't make reservations and there was no one there,

834
00:44:46,360 --> 00:44:48,879
Speaker 2: so we had the place to ourselves. We weren't able

835
00:44:48,920 --> 00:44:50,799
Speaker 2: to go inside, but you know, we peeked in the

836
00:44:50,800 --> 00:44:51,560
Speaker 2: windows and all that.

837
00:44:51,880 --> 00:44:53,640
Speaker 1: It's all windows, pretty the whole thing.

838
00:44:53,680 --> 00:44:56,360
Speaker 2: I know, you really could, he think though, it's definitely

839
00:44:56,360 --> 00:44:58,000
Speaker 2: worth visiting, Chuck, I think you'd love it.

840
00:44:58,480 --> 00:45:00,759
Speaker 1: Oh totally. Is there so many things in LA that

841
00:45:00,800 --> 00:45:03,680
Speaker 1: I was either unaware of or too broke to do that.

842
00:45:04,320 --> 00:45:06,000
Speaker 1: I try to do those things when I go back now.

843
00:45:06,080 --> 00:45:06,480
Speaker 2: Nice.

844
00:45:07,400 --> 00:45:10,960
Speaker 1: So Ray is busy also working on side gigs, designing

845
00:45:11,360 --> 00:45:15,520
Speaker 1: textiles and fabrics and patterns. A couple of her most

846
00:45:15,520 --> 00:45:19,960
Speaker 1: famous ones that Waverley Products picked up is called c

847
00:45:20,200 --> 00:45:25,000
Speaker 1: Things Sea Things, which is whimsical and fun, just like

848
00:45:25,040 --> 00:45:27,800
Speaker 1: she was a little starfish and sort of amba like things.

849
00:45:28,800 --> 00:45:31,560
Speaker 1: And then she was very famous for something you still

850
00:45:31,560 --> 00:45:34,840
Speaker 1: see a lot today called the Emes Dots, which is

851
00:45:34,880 --> 00:45:40,040
Speaker 1: this design that are dots with interconnected lines. It's simple stuff,

852
00:45:40,080 --> 00:45:40,760
Speaker 1: but iconic.

853
00:45:41,480 --> 00:45:44,200
Speaker 2: Yes, if you're into west Elm stuff, you have seen

854
00:45:44,239 --> 00:45:48,840
Speaker 2: this design before or some version of it for sure. Yeah.

855
00:45:48,880 --> 00:45:51,959
Speaker 2: So toys, toys, I think it's time to talk about

856
00:45:52,000 --> 00:45:55,960
Speaker 2: toys in particular. They had one called the Toy Yeah,

857
00:45:56,000 --> 00:45:59,000
Speaker 2: and it was a set of like these vinyl panels

858
00:45:59,040 --> 00:46:02,239
Speaker 2: that you would frame with dowels and then connect to

859
00:46:02,320 --> 00:46:06,840
Speaker 2: other panels with other dowels, and they were either square

860
00:46:06,960 --> 00:46:11,960
Speaker 2: or triangle. I think they're about three feet across, and

861
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:14,359
Speaker 2: the whole point of it was you can build all

862
00:46:14,400 --> 00:46:16,520
Speaker 2: sorts of structures out of it. You can use it

863
00:46:16,560 --> 00:46:18,799
Speaker 2: to build the wings of a theater and pretend you're

864
00:46:18,840 --> 00:46:21,960
Speaker 2: on a stage like it was. You were intended to

865
00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:25,880
Speaker 2: use your imagination, even though in the instructions it shows

866
00:46:25,920 --> 00:46:28,000
Speaker 2: you some ideas and how to build some stuff. But

867
00:46:28,080 --> 00:46:31,400
Speaker 2: it was a toy for everybody, like for all ages.

868
00:46:31,760 --> 00:46:33,319
Speaker 2: And that was I think the first one they came

869
00:46:33,400 --> 00:46:33,719
Speaker 2: up with.

870
00:46:34,239 --> 00:46:37,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was in fifty one. They had the House

871
00:46:37,200 --> 00:46:41,239
Speaker 1: of Cards as well, which is produced in fifty two.

872
00:46:41,320 --> 00:46:44,120
Speaker 1: It's a deck of cards. The patterns on them are beautiful.

873
00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:47,080
Speaker 1: All the cards are different things. It's not like just

874
00:46:47,400 --> 00:46:50,800
Speaker 1: a single pattern deck. But they had notches. It's a house,

875
00:46:51,200 --> 00:46:53,279
Speaker 1: you build it, so they had notcha so you could

876
00:46:53,320 --> 00:46:58,160
Speaker 1: build it into these very emsy looking square structures the

877
00:46:58,239 --> 00:47:01,040
Speaker 1: way the nachas are built. And I was like, I'm

878
00:47:01,040 --> 00:47:04,759
Speaker 1: gonna buy one of those from myle pal Josh, oh thanks.

879
00:47:04,920 --> 00:47:08,200
Speaker 1: I went to It's not coming Dowork. Okay, I went

880
00:47:08,239 --> 00:47:12,360
Speaker 1: to Etsy. That original back is thirty two hundred bucks.

881
00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:15,960
Speaker 1: So amen, that's a lot of money for a deck

882
00:47:15,960 --> 00:47:16,279
Speaker 1: of cards.

883
00:47:16,280 --> 00:47:18,600
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it so okay, well, then you can get

884
00:47:18,600 --> 00:47:20,600
Speaker 2: me one of their musical towers instead.

885
00:47:21,400 --> 00:47:24,359
Speaker 1: Ah. Yes, they were very well known for this being

886
00:47:24,360 --> 00:47:27,160
Speaker 1: in their office. Is still there today. It is a

887
00:47:27,280 --> 00:47:31,279
Speaker 1: vertical xylophone. Yeah, and you drop a ball down it, yeah,

888
00:47:31,320 --> 00:47:34,240
Speaker 1: like plink and yeah, and it just sort of bounces

889
00:47:34,280 --> 00:47:36,239
Speaker 1: its way down, hitting different notes on the way down,

890
00:47:36,239 --> 00:47:37,239
Speaker 1: which is just super fun.

891
00:47:37,320 --> 00:47:39,480
Speaker 2: Yeah. And all the notes are rearrangeable too, which is

892
00:47:39,560 --> 00:47:41,799
Speaker 2: just sweet. There's only three of them in existence, so

893
00:47:41,840 --> 00:47:43,759
Speaker 2: I presume it might even be more than a House

894
00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:44,560
Speaker 2: of cards toy.

895
00:47:45,160 --> 00:47:45,840
Speaker 1: You can buy me that.

896
00:47:46,400 --> 00:47:51,680
Speaker 2: So in addition to toys to furniture, the Emes were

897
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:54,600
Speaker 2: they were just creative, creative people through and through, and

898
00:47:54,640 --> 00:47:57,600
Speaker 2: they saw design everywhere. They had a collection of almost

899
00:47:57,600 --> 00:48:01,240
Speaker 2: a quarter of a million slides, and they would create

900
00:48:01,239 --> 00:48:05,640
Speaker 2: these slide show or multimedia presentations juxtaposing like a shell

901
00:48:05,840 --> 00:48:09,719
Speaker 2: with like a an interstate overpass and be like, look

902
00:48:09,719 --> 00:48:13,040
Speaker 2: at how similar this is. They were just into all

903
00:48:13,080 --> 00:48:15,080
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. And so they've found a lot

904
00:48:15,120 --> 00:48:18,600
Speaker 2: of full film in like another phase, kind of like

905
00:48:18,640 --> 00:48:22,360
Speaker 2: the end phase of their career together, which was coming

906
00:48:22,440 --> 00:48:28,040
Speaker 2: up with movies, exhibits and presentations essentially.

907
00:48:28,520 --> 00:48:32,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they found work in a few different ways.

908
00:48:32,600 --> 00:48:36,840
Speaker 1: They ended up being sponsored or I guess hired by corporations.

909
00:48:37,080 --> 00:48:40,160
Speaker 1: Notably IBM was one of them to create you know,

910
00:48:40,280 --> 00:48:43,279
Speaker 1: kind of industrial films here and there, multi media projects.

911
00:48:43,760 --> 00:48:46,120
Speaker 1: It wasn't like, you know, how you can get your

912
00:48:46,239 --> 00:48:50,080
Speaker 1: hand caught in a printer or anything like that. All

913
00:48:50,160 --> 00:48:53,440
Speaker 1: kinds of different stuff, very creative things. One of the

914
00:48:53,440 --> 00:48:57,919
Speaker 1: most famous films they made, probably the most famous, it's

915
00:48:57,960 --> 00:49:01,080
Speaker 1: called Powers of Ten. I did a prototype film in

916
00:49:01,160 --> 00:49:04,400
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight called a rough sketch for a proposed

917
00:49:04,440 --> 00:49:07,120
Speaker 1: film dealing with the powers of ten and the relative

918
00:49:07,120 --> 00:49:10,080
Speaker 1: size of things in the universe, shot at Miami in

919
00:49:10,120 --> 00:49:12,600
Speaker 1: black and white, and then made a final version. They

920
00:49:12,640 --> 00:49:14,279
Speaker 1: worked on this thing for a long time. It's based

921
00:49:14,320 --> 00:49:18,160
Speaker 1: on a book by a Dutch Dutch teacher named Keys

922
00:49:18,560 --> 00:49:21,920
Speaker 1: Boca called Cosmic View, Colan the Universe and forty Jumps.

923
00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:25,160
Speaker 1: But the final version they shot on the shores of

924
00:49:25,239 --> 00:49:28,239
Speaker 1: Lake Erie. I'm sorry, boy, I almost screwed that one

925
00:49:28,320 --> 00:49:33,239
Speaker 1: up Lake Michigan in Chicago. The final version was in

926
00:49:33,280 --> 00:49:35,520
Speaker 1: seventy seven. It was in color. It was called Powers

927
00:49:35,560 --> 00:49:41,080
Speaker 1: of Ten colon a film dealing with the relative size

928
00:49:41,080 --> 00:49:43,759
Speaker 1: of things in the universe. And what that all means

929
00:49:43,840 --> 00:49:46,200
Speaker 1: is they start with a simple overhead shot of this

930
00:49:46,280 --> 00:49:50,319
Speaker 1: couple next to Lake Michigan having a picnic, and then

931
00:49:50,360 --> 00:49:54,600
Speaker 1: it just keeps zooming back by Powers of ten, narrated

932
00:49:54,640 --> 00:49:58,319
Speaker 1: the whole time by a gentleman MIT physics professor named

933
00:49:58,320 --> 00:50:04,000
Speaker 1: Philip Morrison and Cameron Crow, the director very much inspired

934
00:50:04,040 --> 00:50:07,960
Speaker 1: by Billy Wilder. He opens Jerry Maguire with a very

935
00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:11,839
Speaker 1: similar thing. And I guarantee you he took this from

936
00:50:11,840 --> 00:50:12,880
Speaker 1: the EMES project.

937
00:50:12,920 --> 00:50:16,759
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'm sure like it was. Yeah, it's just

938
00:50:16,840 --> 00:50:18,759
Speaker 2: neat and if you think of it, you're like, yeah,

939
00:50:18,800 --> 00:50:21,360
Speaker 2: of course, it's like somebody was going to stumble on

940
00:50:21,440 --> 00:50:23,680
Speaker 2: this sooner or later. But I don't know how much

941
00:50:23,760 --> 00:50:26,880
Speaker 2: that is just because they put it out there initially.

942
00:50:27,120 --> 00:50:29,600
Speaker 2: But they would zoom out, I think, all the way

943
00:50:29,680 --> 00:50:32,720
Speaker 2: until it was like ten to the tenth power, fifteenth

944
00:50:32,719 --> 00:50:36,759
Speaker 2: power something like that. That is, so the entire known

945
00:50:36,840 --> 00:50:38,960
Speaker 2: universe was encompassed and then zoomed all the way in

946
00:50:39,400 --> 00:50:41,960
Speaker 2: back to that guy laying on a picnic blanket in

947
00:50:42,040 --> 00:50:46,000
Speaker 2: Chicago and then threw his skin into like a proton

948
00:50:46,040 --> 00:50:46,960
Speaker 2: and a carbon atom.

949
00:50:47,000 --> 00:50:50,600
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, super cool. It's nine minutes on YouTube.

950
00:50:50,600 --> 00:50:52,560
Speaker 1: It's very very much worth watching it.

951
00:50:52,719 --> 00:50:54,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, you could watch it ten times in an hour

952
00:50:54,840 --> 00:50:58,759
Speaker 2: and a half if you wanted to. Yeah, but it

953
00:50:58,840 --> 00:51:00,759
Speaker 2: is very cool and it is YouTube, and it is

954
00:51:00,800 --> 00:51:03,319
Speaker 2: definitely worth watching. And that's definitely what they were known for.

955
00:51:03,360 --> 00:51:05,560
Speaker 2: But they made I think one hundred and twenty five films,

956
00:51:05,840 --> 00:51:08,080
Speaker 2: and like I said, they made exhibits for museums, some

957
00:51:08,120 --> 00:51:11,200
Speaker 2: of which are still around right now. They just did

958
00:51:11,239 --> 00:51:13,359
Speaker 2: all sorts of really cool things, like if they had

959
00:51:13,360 --> 00:51:17,120
Speaker 2: an idea, they would explore any medium that they thought

960
00:51:17,200 --> 00:51:19,480
Speaker 2: best got it across. They were just not afraid of

961
00:51:19,520 --> 00:51:24,239
Speaker 2: taking risks. And I didn't realize that about them. I

962
00:51:24,600 --> 00:51:26,879
Speaker 2: didn't know anything about until I met you mean, then

963
00:51:26,920 --> 00:51:30,080
Speaker 2: I started to learn about, you know, furniture design and

964
00:51:30,120 --> 00:51:32,920
Speaker 2: all that, and then from researching this, I got to

965
00:51:33,000 --> 00:51:35,600
Speaker 2: know them better. And I just I just think there

966
00:51:36,160 --> 00:51:38,279
Speaker 2: I admire them a lot more than I did before

967
00:51:38,280 --> 00:51:42,160
Speaker 2: I started researching this, just because they were so varied

968
00:51:42,200 --> 00:51:44,359
Speaker 2: in their pursuits. I just think they're neat.

969
00:51:45,320 --> 00:51:48,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, And you know, it was a great love

970
00:51:48,719 --> 00:51:51,400
Speaker 1: story on one hand, but we do need to just

971
00:51:51,440 --> 00:51:55,360
Speaker 1: sort of mention kind of the darker side, which is

972
00:51:55,480 --> 00:51:56,960
Speaker 1: when I was talking to you about this, you made

973
00:51:56,960 --> 00:52:01,239
Speaker 1: a joke about like people buried in their basement or

974
00:52:01,280 --> 00:52:05,879
Speaker 1: something not that dark. Okay, but you know, when you

975
00:52:06,160 --> 00:52:10,160
Speaker 1: run a design concern, your name is the one that's

976
00:52:10,160 --> 00:52:14,160
Speaker 1: on it. Sometimes it was Charles and Ray, usually just Charles,

977
00:52:14,560 --> 00:52:16,480
Speaker 1: but there they had a whole team of people that

978
00:52:16,600 --> 00:52:20,160
Speaker 1: worked on this stuff, these young designers that work for

979
00:52:20,320 --> 00:52:22,360
Speaker 1: them that you know, they never got any credit, and

980
00:52:22,400 --> 00:52:25,640
Speaker 1: they kind of talked about that. Some people felt exploited.

981
00:52:26,719 --> 00:52:29,640
Speaker 1: Some were like, yeah, we were exploited, but we also

982
00:52:29,719 --> 00:52:33,759
Speaker 1: exploited their name because we worked for the hottest design firm.

983
00:52:33,800 --> 00:52:35,640
Speaker 1: And it was sort of a give and take. And

984
00:52:35,680 --> 00:52:38,400
Speaker 1: that's just sort of the deal. Your name doesn't go

985
00:52:38,480 --> 00:52:41,200
Speaker 1: up there if you're on the team that creates the

986
00:52:41,280 --> 00:52:44,279
Speaker 1: thing that the person whose name is on the you know,

987
00:52:44,719 --> 00:52:47,120
Speaker 1: the placard on the office door, they're they're going to

988
00:52:47,200 --> 00:52:50,000
Speaker 1: get the credit still happens a lot. People are better

989
00:52:50,040 --> 00:52:53,799
Speaker 1: these days about giving credit down to staff. Back then,

990
00:52:53,880 --> 00:52:56,600
Speaker 1: not so much. And then the other thing is Charles

991
00:52:57,080 --> 00:53:02,360
Speaker 1: very very sadly had some affairs. Notably had a pretty

992
00:53:03,040 --> 00:53:06,520
Speaker 1: pretty heavy love affair with a woman named Judith Wexler,

993
00:53:07,080 --> 00:53:10,520
Speaker 1: who he you know, he was so far into it

994
00:53:10,560 --> 00:53:12,399
Speaker 1: that he was like, I want to sell nine oh one,

995
00:53:13,000 --> 00:53:15,400
Speaker 1: I want to get divorced, I want to move to

996
00:53:15,440 --> 00:53:17,160
Speaker 1: New York, I want to marry you. I want to

997
00:53:17,200 --> 00:53:20,760
Speaker 1: have a baby. And she broke it off because she said,

998
00:53:20,800 --> 00:53:24,000
Speaker 1: you couldn't do that to Ray, because they were friends

999
00:53:24,000 --> 00:53:24,440
Speaker 1: as well.

1000
00:53:24,960 --> 00:53:26,920
Speaker 2: Man the Middle century.

1001
00:53:27,400 --> 00:53:29,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, Ray knew about the stuff. It was

1002
00:53:29,440 --> 00:53:34,000
Speaker 1: a time where divorce wasn't as popular and it was

1003
00:53:34,040 --> 00:53:36,240
Speaker 1: tough for her. She apparently dealt with it very privately.

1004
00:53:36,400 --> 00:53:39,000
Speaker 1: But you know they stuck together until the end.

1005
00:53:39,160 --> 00:53:42,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, Yeah, wow, I didn't know about that either.

1006
00:53:43,040 --> 00:53:47,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, but worth mentioning until you know. Charles died in

1007
00:53:47,239 --> 00:53:48,080
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight.

1008
00:53:48,480 --> 00:53:53,000
Speaker 2: Yeah. Something sweet about that is Ray died exactly a

1009
00:53:53,040 --> 00:53:57,000
Speaker 2: decade later, on August twenty first, nineteen eighty eight. And

1010
00:53:57,040 --> 00:54:00,680
Speaker 2: she spent that decade basically archiving in or organizing and

1011
00:54:00,760 --> 00:54:03,040
Speaker 2: documenting all the work they did together. And then I

1012
00:54:03,080 --> 00:54:05,560
Speaker 2: guess she realized or felt like her work was done

1013
00:54:05,560 --> 00:54:09,359
Speaker 2: and said, Ray out.

1014
00:54:10,160 --> 00:54:12,600
Speaker 1: Yeah. She passed from cancer. He died of a heart

1015
00:54:12,640 --> 00:54:17,000
Speaker 1: attack on a consulting trip in Saint Louis. And you know,

1016
00:54:17,040 --> 00:54:20,080
Speaker 1: they were very beloved. The people. He didn't have any employees.

1017
00:54:20,120 --> 00:54:23,600
Speaker 1: It sounded like they didn't absolutely love them. I think

1018
00:54:23,640 --> 00:54:25,560
Speaker 1: some of them were a little salty about credit here

1019
00:54:25,600 --> 00:54:28,160
Speaker 1: and there, But to a person, they were all like

1020
00:54:28,440 --> 00:54:31,520
Speaker 1: it was a magical time. They were magical people, and

1021
00:54:31,600 --> 00:54:33,800
Speaker 1: it was just a great thing all the way around.

1022
00:54:33,920 --> 00:54:36,440
Speaker 2: Well, I'm definitely I'm glad we included the dark side.

1023
00:54:36,480 --> 00:54:38,680
Speaker 1: Then you can't white watch that stuff.

1024
00:54:38,680 --> 00:54:42,000
Speaker 2: You know, it's true. You got anything else, Chuck.

1025
00:54:42,320 --> 00:54:45,960
Speaker 1: I got nothing else. Look forward to case study House podcasts.

1026
00:54:46,040 --> 00:54:48,280
Speaker 2: Okay, podcasts are short stuff.

1027
00:54:49,320 --> 00:54:51,839
Speaker 1: I think I think we could probably stretch that one

1028
00:54:51,840 --> 00:54:55,279
Speaker 1: out to a full no problem, because hey, what's better

1029
00:54:55,320 --> 00:54:58,520
Speaker 1: than sitting around and listening to a show described the

1030
00:54:58,560 --> 00:55:01,320
Speaker 1: way something looks?

1031
00:55:01,400 --> 00:55:04,439
Speaker 2: Do it? And since Chuck and I just negotiated whether

1032
00:55:04,520 --> 00:55:06,520
Speaker 2: that episode would be a short stuff or a full

1033
00:55:06,760 --> 00:55:08,919
Speaker 2: length episode, it's time for listener mail.

1034
00:55:11,239 --> 00:55:14,280
Speaker 1: All right, I'm going to call this a reminder to Sandwich.

1035
00:55:14,360 --> 00:55:17,120
Speaker 1: This is from Aaron Burke. Hey, guys, recently found your show.

1036
00:55:17,600 --> 00:55:19,680
Speaker 1: I've gotten into it. I started to listen to the

1037
00:55:19,719 --> 00:55:21,919
Speaker 1: most recent and then I thought, well, maybe I should

1038
00:55:21,960 --> 00:55:25,040
Speaker 1: have the whole experience and start at the beginning. These

1039
00:55:25,080 --> 00:55:27,560
Speaker 1: early episodes are a little unsatisfying because I know the

1040
00:55:27,640 --> 00:55:31,280
Speaker 1: finely tuned show that you've achieved after fifteen hundred episodes.

1041
00:55:31,719 --> 00:55:34,720
Speaker 1: My question is, what would you recommend for new listeners.

1042
00:55:34,760 --> 00:55:37,160
Speaker 1: Start at the beginning, work backwards, go to episode one

1043
00:55:37,280 --> 00:55:40,000
Speaker 1: seventy seven as of now, I'm starting at day one,

1044
00:55:40,440 --> 00:55:43,239
Speaker 1: and that is from Aaron Burke and Erin. I let

1045
00:55:43,239 --> 00:55:45,200
Speaker 1: Aaron know which episode this is going to be on

1046
00:55:45,280 --> 00:55:49,759
Speaker 1: so he could hear it. But what we recommend is sandwiching.

1047
00:55:50,000 --> 00:55:53,600
Speaker 1: That is, listen to the latest one and then listen

1048
00:55:53,680 --> 00:55:57,920
Speaker 1: to the earliest one, and then work forwards and backwards

1049
00:55:58,000 --> 00:56:01,560
Speaker 1: until you meet in the middle. For the reasons of

1050
00:56:02,120 --> 00:56:04,839
Speaker 1: compare and contrast. It's fun to hear the show now

1051
00:56:04,880 --> 00:56:07,080
Speaker 1: and how much has changed, but also you don't want

1052
00:56:07,120 --> 00:56:09,480
Speaker 1: to miss out on announcements and live show stuff and

1053
00:56:10,239 --> 00:56:14,600
Speaker 1: you know changes that happen, although there's really not many.

1054
00:56:14,840 --> 00:56:18,240
Speaker 2: No, no, there's no changes whatsoever these days.

1055
00:56:18,560 --> 00:56:20,319
Speaker 1: But we think the sandwich method is pretty fun.

1056
00:56:20,440 --> 00:56:24,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been the recommended version or method for the

1057
00:56:24,400 --> 00:56:25,520
Speaker 2: whole time, I think.

1058
00:56:25,400 --> 00:56:28,040
Speaker 1: Essentially, right, yeah, but you know, do it how you want.

1059
00:56:28,080 --> 00:56:29,080
Speaker 1: That's what we think.

1060
00:56:29,280 --> 00:56:31,520
Speaker 2: Sure, Yeah, each their own, right.

1061
00:56:31,760 --> 00:56:35,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, So who is that Aaron Burke.

1062
00:56:35,960 --> 00:56:39,840
Speaker 2: Aaron, however, you listen to the entire catalog of Stuff

1063
00:56:39,880 --> 00:56:42,440
Speaker 2: you Should Know, we hope you enjoy every single minute

1064
00:56:42,440 --> 00:56:44,360
Speaker 2: of it. And if you want to be like Aaron

1065
00:56:44,400 --> 00:56:46,040
Speaker 2: and get in touch with us and ask us for

1066
00:56:46,080 --> 00:56:49,359
Speaker 2: some advice of some sort, do it. You can send

1067
00:56:49,360 --> 00:56:56,360
Speaker 2: it in an email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.

1068
00:56:56,520 --> 00:56:58,839
Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.

1069
00:56:59,280 --> 00:57:02,520
Speaker 1: For more, podcast to my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1070
00:57:02,719 --> 00:57:05,600
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.