“A Black With Feeling”
April 16, 2013 by:
Daniel Ostroff
Vitra announced a re-work of classic Charles and Ray Eames designs at Salone del Mobile. Holding the license to these works in Europe, Vitra updates both colors and materials on the Eames collection. The stand-outs in the re-works in black including the Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman, Plastic Chairs, Wire Chair, and stool.
Irv Green and Sol Fingerhut, two professionals in the early plastics industry in Gardena, CA, worked with Charles and Ray Eames on the first Eames molded plastic chairs. Before Charles and Ray came along, Green and Fingerhut mostly were making molded plastic parts for U.S. military airplanes. The plastic they used, a type of fiberglass, was translucent, and somewhat transparent when solid. Charles and Ray spent many nights working with them to perfect the early, integral colors for the Eames chairs. At many nights of trial and error, Green and Fingerhut said that they told Charles and Ray that they really didn’t understand what Charles and Ray wanted in the way of a dark color. They said that Charles looked at them and gestured with cupped hands, saying, “I want a black with feeling.”
Inspired by this, Vitra offers these classics in “black, with feeling!”
This next picture shows an Eames design never previously produced, Stool Model D, one of the original shapes devised by Charles and Ray Eames for the Time-Life Lobby in New York City in 1961
It’s a great new addition to Vitra’s line of Eames classics, and it’s in black.
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