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Eames Wire-Base Table

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Designers

Charles and Ray Eames Charles and Ray Eames

What's In It For You

  • Product Story

    Line a few of them up to work like a coffee table. Use them as bedside tables. Stack one on top of another to serve as an end table next to a sofa. Scatter them around a room. Use them to serve hors d'oeuvres and drinks.

  • The lightweight Eames wire-base tables are practical and versatile in homes, reception areas, lounges—anywhere you need a small surface that makes a big statement.

  • A Little Eames

    Any interior can be brightened up with a little Eames, and these small tables bear all the hallmarks of classic Eames design—the use of welded wire rods in the base, molded plywood in the surface, and beveled edge that reveals the essential material—the wood plies—beneath the surface.

  • The base consists of two U-shaped steel rods attached to the top, with cross members for added stability; available in powder-coat white, black, or zinc. The top is seven layers of Baltic birch plywood sandwiched between ash veneer or high-pressure laminate in black or white.

  • Small Wonder

    The table's compact size and light weight make it easy to move to wherever you need a small, attractive surface. You can even stack them out of the way when you're not using them.

Design Story

  • Charles and Ray Eames were always looking for new materials and new ways to create distinctive furniture. In the late 1940s, Charles noted the "fantastic things being made of wire." That fascination led them to experiment with metal wire rods and mesh, and eventually to develop a mass-production technique for simultaneously welding wire rods—an innovation that resulted in many pieces that have become classics of modern design, including wire chairs, plastic chairs with wire bases, storage units, and elliptical tables.

  • Another result was this compact table, introduced in 1950. Legend has it that these tables were made from material left over from cutting the Elliptical tables out of sheets of plywood. The Eameses used them to conduct chanoyu, the traditional Japanese tea ceremony, for special guests, including sculptor Isamu Noguchi and film pioneer Charlie Chaplin. Today these lightweight, diminutive tables stand on their own, next to beds and chairs as an accompanying surface, or on top of each other in a convenient stack.

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