All About Those Eames Airport Chairs
All About Those Eames Airport Chairs
Plus, fresh listings from Pasadena to Pennsylvania
Design is subjective, mostly. But what are the objective ways to measure a design? Commercial success, longevity, influence, ubiquity? Using any of those, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better design than the Tandem Sling Seats, designed by Charles and Ray Eames.
The late 1950’s saw a boom in commercial travel, fueled by Boeing’s 707 and dozens of new routes to Europe and beyond. Airports across the U.S. quickly expanded to meet the new demand. In 1961, Chicago's O'Hare International Airport constructed two fresh terminal buildings, necessitating a new seating offering.
Around the same time, Eero Saarinen, a close associate of the Eames, was tasked with sourcing new public seating for another airport project, Dulles Airport in the Washington DC area. With prior forays in sling-style seating, Charles and Ray Eames had already been contemplating the development of flexible public seating concepts and were the perfect fit for the project. The Tandem Sling Seating made its 1962 debut at O’Hare and Dulles, but quickly gained popularity worldwide, becoming a fixture in countless airports around the globe.
Tandem Sling Seating retains is popularity today, serving hundreds of airports and thousands of other public spaces across the globe. The concept of multiple public seating carried on and evolved with later Eames designs, Tandem Shell Seating (1963) and School Seating (1964). The sling design is, of course, still in production by Herman Miller, and likely will be for a very long time.
GEMS FOR SALE THIS WEEK
1950 Englewood Ter, Forty Fort PA
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316 Redwood Dr, Pasadena CA
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4737 S Quail Point Rd, Salt Lake City UT
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2435 South Dahlia Lane, Denver CO
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