Eames Ovoid Theatre
April 3, 2013 by:
Daniel Ostroff
Canopy of Eames IBM NYWF Pavilion
The 1964-65 New York World’s Fair IBM pavilion, designed by Charles & Ray Eames with Studio Saarinen, featured a suspended ovoid theatre over a canopy of steel trees, in which a multimedia show offered glimpses of the future. From the DOMUS Magazine archive we have an article, originally published in Domus 424 / March 1965
Here is an excerpt:
Charles Eames’ Ovoid Theatre
Domus readers have already been given an anticipatory view of Charles Eames’ famous IBM pavilion. Its main feature is the suspended theatre, an ovoid volume raised above the forest of steel tree-like structures which support the translucent roof over the open-air exhibit. A huge hydraulic lift (the People Wall) lifts a completely seated audience of five-hundred people fifty feet into the ovoid theatre (the lnformation Machine).
This audience,”withdrawn” from the crowd and isolated within the huge egg will be in the “centre” of an unexpected spectacle; as in a space-ship, of unusual dimensions, the spectator’s feeling of surprise and uncertainty will predispose him to a greater emotion. There the show begins: a multiscreen film presentation, including motion picture and still slide projections, four sound systems, runways and stages for live actors appearances. Multiscreen large-scale projections had already been experimented by Eames (US Exhibition in Moscow, 1959) but now, for the first time, the theatre itself has been built together with the spectacle, the one being conceived in relation to the other.
To read the full article, please click here.
The Domus digital archive includes all our issues since 1928. If you’d like to subscribe find out more.
![Il padiglione sospeso di Charles Eames ["Charles Eames' suspended pavilion"], Domus 424 / March 1965 page details](../../wp-content/uploads/2013/04/big_393445_5420_8123.jpg)
Il padiglione sospeso di Charles Eames ["Charles Eames' suspended pavilion"], Domus 424 / March 1965 page details
![Il padiglione sospeso di Charles Eames ["Charles Eames' suspended pavilion"], Domus 424 / March 1965 page details](../../wp-content/uploads/2013/04/big_393445_1732_7177.jpg)
Il padiglione sospeso di Charles Eames ["Charles Eames' suspended pavilion"], Domus 424 / March 1965 page details
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