The Last Eames Chair Prototype

This set of skeletal aluminum frames provides more questions than answers. A tag attached by the office in the years after Charles’s death identifies it as a prototype and offers the intriguing description: “Last Eames chair, never produced.” Notes from a later interview (housed in UCLA’s Charles E. Young Research Library) with staff member Sam Passalacqua identify the frames as the early stages of a concept for an inexpensive outdoor chair the office was working on with Willi Fehlbaum of Vitra, Herman Miller’s European counterpart. The intent was for the two aluminum side members to support a rigid plastic shell with an opening in the back that would allow water to drain. According to Passalacqua, Fehlbaum lost interest and the design “died a slow death.” While research on these items is ongoing, for now they stand as a testament to the archival work that Ray and her small team did in the final years at 901 Washington overseeing the transfer of material to the Library of Congress and tagging furniture, prototypes, and parts with identifying information.