Design developed in 1945
Charles and Ray Eames developed their molded plywood chairs through experiments with shaping thin layers of wood. The DCW, or Dining Chair Wood, was designed in 1945 and entered the market in 1946. It applied a material process to the practical problem of making a comfortable, reproducible chair.
The chair uses separate curved panels for the seat and back rather than one continuous shell. That arrangement makes its construction easy to read: shaped surfaces support the sitter while a light framework holds them together. The result connects technical experimentation with the scale of an ordinary domestic object.
What to look for
- Separate molded seat and back panels
- A lightweight, visibly assembled structure
- Material experiments translated into furniture