In The Eames Houses, Eckart Meise explores the residential projects of Charles and Ray Eames, including previously unpublished designs.
Sandra Hofmeister
Eckart Maise, The Eames Houses. Charles and Ray Eames Residential Architecture, Phaidon, London 2026 → order now
Pacific Palisades
“I first encountered it in the early 1960s, as a young architect traveling through the United States after my studies at Yale,” writes Norman Foster in the foreword to this book, “eager to see firsthand the buildings that were reshaping architectural thinking.” Can you guess what this is about? Yes, exactly—the famous home of Charles and Ray Eames in Pacific Palisades, Case Study House No. 8. Yet it remains just one of many projects—some realized and some documented only as designs—on which the designer couple worked.
Charles and Ray near the entrance of their home, the Eames House, c. 1954. © 2026 Eames Office, LLC
Together with Eero Saarinen and Buckminster Fuller
Eckart Maise, director of the Eames Foundation in California, has compiled a book about all these houses titled *Eames Houses: Charles and Ray Eames Residential Architecture*. It begins with Case Study Houses 8 and 9, originally developed in collaboration with Eero Saarinen, then moves on to three designs for director Billy Wilder, and presents research on the “Supermarket House”—a project that was to be realized as the Dome House in collaboration with Richard Buckminster Fuller. The book concludes with two completed projects for the owners of Tigrett and Herman Miller, both of whom were manufacturers of Eames products.
West facade of the Entenza House with hourglass emblem and kitchen entrance covered by canopy. © 2026 Eames Office, LLC. All rights reserved.
Prefabrication, System-Based Approach
Throughout the chapters of this book—almost in passing, so to speak—the author has interspersed headings that explain the history of design and architecture in the postwar era and clarify the context of the projects. Topics such as steel-frame construction, prefabrication, issues of modern living, and the concept of modular systems are addressed. For the individual projects from the 1940s and 1950s, the foundation opened the Eames Archive. It’s no wonder that the variety of source material, photos, drawings, and new photographs in this book is stunning. Some projects have never been published before.
Model for the Shelter House, 1951. © 2026 Eames Office, LLC. All rights reserved
Everything is architecture
A timeline provides a detailed breakdown of all events; the biographies of Charles and Ray Eames are also documented, and their philosophy is evident throughout the book. “I was trained as an architect, but then our architecture, particularly at that time, was a great foundation for many kinds of things,” Charles Eames is quoted as saying. The Eameses’ architectural vision lives on in films, exhibitions, and many other projects. “I think it’s architecture. That’s what we draw all the time,” Eames sums up.
Modular building systems
This past spring, the Eames Office and Kettal presented a modular kit at the Salone del Mobile that brings the Eames vision to life: a system that can be mass-produced yet remains customizable. Given this pavilion system and its launch at the Milan fair, the publication by Phaidon can certainly serve as background research.
From the inside perspective
There are many books about Charles and Ray Eames, but this one sheds light on a completely new aspect: Rather than reducing the American couple to their work in industrial design, it portrays them as architects who contributed to the advancement of the discipline. As a portrait, the book captures the attitudes, projects, and convictions of these two brilliant designers from an insider’s perspective, so to speak. That is precisely what makes this book so valuable.
