Vitra - Eames Storage Unit ESU Bookcase

Vitra - Eames Storage Unit ESU Bookcase.

Design by Charles & Ray Eames 1949.

The Eames Storage Unit (ESU) from Vitra catches the eye with its clear panels and slender metal transverse structures. These versatile, free-standing storage units are available in four different heights and are suitable as bookshelves, partitions or as side tables. The metal legs can be individually adjusted to fit uneven floors.

Charles and Ray Eames designed the Eames Storage Unit (ESU) and Eames Desk Unit (EDU) in 1949. The innovative, lightweight structure of the furniture was based on the principles of industrial production, just like the iconic Eames House. In honor of the spirit of the 1940s and 50s, the contemporary color palette of EDU and ESU was developed together with Eames Office and the Dutch designer Hella Jongerius.

Color: birch, eames-red, black powder coated metal, soft blue, mauve grey, deer brown, rusty orange
Width: 120 cm Depth: 43 cm Height: 148 cm.
Material: powder-coated metal and aluminum, maple plywood with birch veneer

About Charles & Ray Eames:

Ray and Charles Eames were an American designer couple whose name is known to anyone interested in modern design. Charles Eames was born in 1907 in St. Louis, Missouri. He studied architecture at the University of Washington and, at the invitation of Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen, continued his studies at the Cranbrook Academy of Arts, Michigan in 1940.

There he met Eero Saarinen, with whom he participated in a contest called "Organic Design." in Home 'Layout', arranged by MoMA from New York. Eames and Saarinen won the competition using a multiplex casting technique, originally developed by Alvar Aalto.

In Cranbrook, Charles Eames also met her future wife Ray, and the couple married in 1941.

In 1957, Vitra signed a license agreement with Herman Miller and the company began producing the designs of the Eames duo for Europe and the Middle East. Charles and Ray Eames have strongly influenced Vitra and continue to do so today. It was the encounter with their work that heralded the start of the company as a furniture manufacturer. But not only the products of Charles and Ray Eames have left their mark on Vitra. Their design philosophy makes an important contribution to the values, orientation and objectives of the company even today.

The magnitude of this influence is most clearly expressed in the question that Vitra always asks when important design decisions are made: What would Charles and Ray say? During their lives together, the couple answered that question during their travels to Europe and repeated visits to California. Since the death of Charles (1978) and Ray (1988), Vitra has remained in close contact with the Eames family, who now manages the Eames Office, on all issues related to the preservation, further development and production of Eames designs . As the only authorized manufacturer of their products for Europe and the Middle East, Vitra offers you the certainty that you own an original Eames product.

The furniture of Charles and Ray Eames has been a cornerstone of the collection since the beginning of the Vitra Design Museum. In 1988 the museum received a large part of the objects from the couple's estate. After the Vitra Design Museum presented the exhibition 'The Work of Charles and Ray Eames' in 1997/98, the museum is now organizing an extensive retrospective of the life's work of the couple, entitled 'An Eames Celebration', in 2017/18 in four parallel exhibitions on the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein. To celebrate the occasion, the Vitra Design Museum has published the "Eames Furniture Sourcebook" and "Essential Eames: Words & Pictures".