Playfully utilitarian

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The Story 🗞️

The Eames Storage Unit (ESU)

When you think of Eames design, affordability and innovation come to mind. Charles and Ray Eames aimed to make their designs accessible to nearly everyone. While there were a few exceptions, like the luxurious Eames Lounge Chair, most of their products were designed to be mass-produced, inexpensive, and cheerful. This frugality is also evident in the construction of their home in Pacific Palisades, California (Case Study House #8), which used standard, off-the-shelf materials with very little custom work.

No Eames design better reflects this sense of economy than the Eames Storage Units (ESU). Made from low-cost materials like masonite and laminated birch, and using construction techniques that favored perforated angle iron over traditional joinery, the ESU's were modular storage and shelving systems that were functional, sturdy, and cheap to produce. Introduced by Herman Miller in 1950, the ESU's versatility in both commercial and residential settings made it an immediate success, and they are still in production today.

The ESUs were designed for exceptional manufacturing economy, using standard elements that could be arranged into different types of units for various uses—in the living room, dining room, bedroom, or as room dividers. Made of perforated steel extrusions with diagonal bracing, they could be configured as low credenzas or high bookshelves, facilitating open storage, closed storage, and drawers.

There were two color choices: “Colorful” units with primary colors of red, blue, and yellow, and “Neutral” with beige and gray. The wood elements were available in walnut or birch. Unlike anything on the consumer market at the time, their closest parallel was industrial shelving, years before “High Tech” became a buzzword in interior design.

True to the Eames philosophy, all materials were presented honestly: the extruded steel structure was unadorned and unconcealed. Optional metal parts included cross wires and sheets of steel drilled with holes. Thin plywood doors, developed by the Eameses in 1946, were also available, molded with circular indentations for a cared-for appearance and increased durability and resistance to warping.

However, there's a twist that might not have pleased the Eameses: they are not exactly affordable now. Vintage, original examples can sell for tens of thousands of dollars at auction, and even new ones made by Herman Miller (and Vitra overseas) are not easy on the wallet. Despite this, the ESU remains a wonderful example of utilitarian design. Occasionally, they pop up quite cheap at flea markets and thrift stores, so keep an eye out!

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