What's In It For You
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Product Story
AKA Time-Life chairs—because they, along with the Eames walnut stools, were originally created for the executive floors of the Time-Life Building in 1960. Also appropriate because, when you sit in it, you'll have the time of your life.
Chess genius Bobby Fischer did. He demanded this chair for his legendary 1972 World Championship match with Russian master Boris Spassky, who, when he got a look at the chair, demanded one for himself.
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It's All in the Details
This luxurious chair is an example of Charles Eames's belief that "the details are not details; they make the product." Generously sized, the executive chair features the highest quality materials, including an aluminum base and frame and finely detailed leather or fabric upholstery accented with upholstery-covered buttons and edge details typical of traditional fine furniture. Adjustable seat height, tilt-swivel mechanism, and a stable five-star base add to the comfort. Available with casters or glides, so the chairs can work well in a conference room, board room, conversation area, or behind a desk.
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Luxurious Comfort
Comfort comes first. The seat has 4-1/2-inch-thick foam cushions; the back cushions are 3 inches thick. Armrests are well padded.
Design Story
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When George Nelson asked Charles Eames to help in the design of the U.S. pavilion at the Moscow world exhibition in 1959, they needed to work fast. Eames called his friend Henry Luce, the chairman of Time-Life, to ask that Time-Life's vast archive of images be open to him for the slideshow he imagined. When Luce said yes, the story of the Time-Life chair began.
Luce's only condition was that Eames return the help one day. A year after the exhibition in Moscow—a great success, featuring Eames's multi-screen slide show, a first—Luce called to ask Eames for a chair for the executive floors of his new building. Charles and Ray Eames responded with the Time-Life chair and walnut stools, and Herman Miller still produces them.