Airplane Stabilizer

This Eames-designed skin for an airplane stabilizer was never realized, yet it shows the designers building their skill set with increasingly ambitious projects, in terms of both scale and structure. For the first time, they worked closely with factory technicians, arriving at designs that were appropriately streamlined for mass manufacture. Charles later pointed out that, while factories did not have an “art tradition,” they could produce aesthetically pleasing products through the efficiency of their process, which “submits to no compromise.” Charles and Ray’s experience participating in this collaborative and demanding process would come to be essential after the war when the designers returned to furniture making on a growing scale.