Living in the Brownfield - 100 years of Ray Eames

December 15th is the centennial of the birth of Ray Eames. We wanted to acknowledge her contribution to the design world and offer you a chance to look back at an interesting and often overlooked detail of the eames house described in her own words.

“Then there are the reflections; windows that reflect back abstract patterns of eucalyptus bark, superimposing them on the human textures within. Elsewhere you see the meadow through windows, through the house, through interior plants, all at once. There is a

detail over the back patio – a black-and-white photograph of these same trees screened onto a textile, then mounted on a panel and screwed to the building. Just before twilight, when shadows still fall on the image and the natural light turns the reflections on the leaves monochromatic, it becomes almost impossible to tell where the building ends and the reflections begin. One truly believes Ray when she remarked “after 13 years of living in it,
the building for me ceased to exist a long time ago.”

excerpt from "The Eames Primer" by Eames Demetrios.

To learn more about this detail please refer to our earlier blog post:
http://speakingofarchitecture-sfa.blogspot.com/2012/06/living-in-brownfield-here-and-there-at_26.html