Charles & Ray Eames left their mark on the 20th century with their creations and design philosophy. Among their many inventions, the brilliant couple created an iconic game: House of Cards, for which Mon Petit Art is now the official distributor in Europe!

While the designer duo is best known for their furniture, they were also interested in toys. Charles & Ray Eames' games remain iconic references to this day.

" In a good classic toy, there is nothing shy about the use of materials. Wood is wood. Tinplate is tinplate. What has been shaped has been perfectly shaped. It is possible that, amidst all this, we find a clue to what defines the creative climate of every era, including our own.ôtre. » - Charles EAMES

Charles & Ray Eames created House of Cards in 1952; this game, which is over 60 years old, has yet to show its age! Designed for both children and adults, it invites you to build a surprising and playful object, in the spirit of its creators. The Charles & Ray Eames game consists of several cards, each printed with a different image. To choose these images, Charles & Ray Eames drew inspiration from their travels and the little everyday wonders, observing the nostalgic details of home life. Colored pencils, small porcelain objects, wallpaper, and matches: everything is carefully cataloged and printed on the rectangular cards. Each card has 6 notches; this allows them to be assembled together to create three-dimensional structures. Imaginary castle? Geometric tower? Maze of tunnels? The building possibilities are endless! The combination of different images, all in perspective, produces a surprising result.

The game comes in three sizes: Little, Medium, and Giant. The smallest features flexible cards the size of classic playing cards; the giant cards are rectangles measuring 29 x 19 cm, perfect for building an impressive structure! Each of these models lets you create constructions at a different scale. Which one will you prefer?
 

To better understand how the Charles & Ray Eames game came to be, here is a bit of the story of the two designers.

Charles Eames was born in 1907 in Saint Louis, Missouri. Trained as an architect, he founded his own firm before moving to Michigan, where he became a professor and then head of the industrial design department at the Cranbrook Academy of Art.

Ray Eames (born Bernice Alexandra Keiser) was born in 1912 to Sacramento, California. She studies painting in New York and takes part in the first exhibition of American abstract artists at the Riverside Museum, then enrolls at the Cranbrook Academy of Art.

This is where Charles and Ray Eames meet; they marry in 1941, forming the most influential designer duo of the 20th century.ème sièclear!

"Anything I can do, Ray can do better." - Charles Eames

Charles and Ray Eames advocate a universal approach to their discipline, expressing themselves through many mediums: architecture, furniture, film, textiles, museum exhibitions, magazines… and games! Their philosophy is to create connections between disciplines that respond to each other. Architects or designers? Charles & Ray Eames are both!

"Officially, I consider myself an architect. I cannot help but view the problems around us as structural problems – and structure is architecture." – Charles Eames

Perhaps it is in furniture that they have made the most lasting impression, particularly by designing chairs, such as the very famous "Lounge Chair."

" I am interested in furniture, especially chairs, because they are pieces to human scale… That’s why architects design furniture, to create architecture that we can hold in our hands » – Charles Eames

Today, in everyday language, "design" is an expression that is almost synonymous with "beautiful." This is far from the philosophy of Charles & Ray Eames, in which design primarily means ergonomics; how the object adapts to the person, to their shape, and how, ultimately, it can best fulfill its role as an object. A design object is therefore one that combines a functional aspect with an appealing one. Besides, don’t the Eames chairs look comfortable?

The quotes in this article are taken from the beautiful book 100 quotes by Charles Eames (edited by Carle Hartman and Eames Demetrios in 2007)Indeed, although Charles Eames wrote only a few articles or books, he made a lasting impression during his lectures and talks with phrases that stayed in the minds of his audience.