Ala Kazam! - Eames Chair

In 1941 Charles and Ray Eames turned their LA apartment into a workshop. They were relentless and worked by their mantra, “The details are not the details. They make the design.” First, they set up a workshop in the guest room. Then they expanded their operations into the kitchen and bedroom. Their quest at the time was to mould plywood 3 dimensionally in order to produce sculptures, aircraft parts, leg splints, kids toys, and furniture.

Initially, they took a thin sheet of 1/16” of birch veneer and laid it on the work table and coated it with glue. They added a second sheet on top with its grain placed at a 90 degree angle to the first, and coated it with another layer of glue. Layers of veneer were added until a small rectangle of coated veneers approximately 3/8” thick was obtained. For each prototype, Charles Eames experimented with a variety of glues including casein and soy bean mixtures to find the fastest curing formula, till finally settling on a quick drying urea and formaldehyde mixture. Initially, veneers were dampened and steamed in the Eames’ kitchen prior to refining the molding process. Later they focused on applying pressure to plywood without breaking it.

They worked in alternating 4-6 hour shifts often into the late night to ensure the plies would be formed with the glue cured. Many trials were needed to perfect the time required to mold varying numbers of veneer plied, and the precise amounts of glue to use. With materials scarce during war time, they experimented on small pieces before scaling up to full sized chairs.

In their effort to mould plywood into compound curves, they developed the ‘The Kazam! Machine’, ("Ala Kazam! – like magic.") a home-made machine that was comprised of a curing oven made from wood scraps and spare bicycle parts. Made of a hinged and bolted curving plaster mold, the plywood veneers would be sandwiched into shape with a manually inflated membrane inflated by a bicycle pump. Since the heated mold which consisted of energy coils required a lot more current than their apartment could provide, Charles climbed up a nearby power pole carrying a large piece of heavy insulated cable, in order to tap enough electricity to run the Kazam! Machine. Eames was afraid he would be electrocuted, but luckily he survived and by the spring of 1945 the Eames succeeded in creating the plywood lounge wood chari made from plywood shells with compound curves.