Essay: William Haines and Eero Saarinen

William Haines was born in 1900 in Virginia, U.S. He left home at a very early age in his teens and started out his career as an actor in Hollywood. He became famous very quickly and was loved by many fans. In his late thirties, he quite from being a movie star and started his new career as an interior designer. He was the number one designer in Hollywood, and worked for all the movie stars and famous people there. Haines transformed the very new look of Hollywood.

He created sleek, classic pieces that were triumphs of form and function. Haines was very interested in how people lived and how he could make their homes easier to live in. After the two world wars, people wanted a huge change in life, they wanted to be more comfortable and Haines successfully showed this in all his designs. He created beautiful luxurious homes which were different from the past. He had his own unique style. 

His style was inspired mostly from art deco, but he also was very futuristic in his ideas. The Valentine, Bel-Air, and the Tufted are three sofas that Haines created in the early fifties and the three of them have very similar styles. Valentine has a bright red/ scarlet colour, hence the name- ‘Valentine’, while the Bel-Air is in white and Tufted in Beige. They are very boxy shaped sofas, with quilted squares all over the fabric. The wooden frame is all hidden, except for the sofa legs. They look very comfortable, unique and bold. The design must have been very modernistic for the time being, they actually look like something that might have been designed today, during our contempory period. They are long sofas, which don’t look bulky at all. 

Valentine

Bel-Air

Tufted

The Iron Coffee table is another luxurious and classic design of William Haines. It is a very simple black metal framed coffee table with a transparent glass top. The metal frame is very different from the usual table frames, it actually looks like a tennis court. The design is very fun and sleek. This is the kind of designs people wanted in the 1950’s – simple and luxurious. They were very tired after both world wars and these designs made their life much easier. The graceful lines of the table are very glamorous and original. 

Iron Coffee Table

Eero Saarinen is also an interior designer mostly popular in the 1960’s, from Michigan. Just like Haines he was also a designer who wanted a change, someone who wanted his designs to be simple, but fun and luxurious. During Saarinen’s time people were already getting used to the change of design after both wars. In the 1960’s there was a huge experimentation, with organic shapes and different materials.

 The Tulip Chair is considered to be a classic of industrial design. Saarinen original design is all white with red cushion. It is aluminum based with fiberglass frame. The style is very modernist with smooth curved lines and the experimental with materials was very futuristic for the time. For the time being it was also very original the idea of creating a chair with just one leg. This was part of the huge change in design from before the world wars. It is a very elegant slim design.

Tulip Chair

The Womb Chair is another classic design of Saarinen. It is a lounge chair and a footrest, with its polished chrome base and a frame upholstered in fabric over a fiberglass shell. It looks very comfortable and the shape is very agronomical. This design defiantly sets new standards for comfortable modern design. The chair is designed to facilitate a relaxed sitting posture – hence the name ‘Womb’. Like Haines designs this looks like something we still have in our homes: their designs were very futuristic. 

The Womb Chair

Both William Haines and Eero Saarinen were involved in the huge challenge for change after the two world wars and both were very successful. When the wars ended, they left a new worldwide generation of veterans with young families struggling to rebuild their lives. They were hoping for a very comfortable future with inexpensive housing and furnishings and this led to a boom in design and production. Both their design were very futuristic and most of them are still being produced today.

Bibiliography:

Jared Goss 2013 http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/dsgn3/hd_dsgn3.htm

Hive 2014 http://hivemodern.com/pages/product173/knoll-eero-saarinen-womb-chair-ottoman

Design within reach 2014 http://www.dwr.com/product/womb-chair-classic-boucle.do

All searched on the 17^th January 2014