Eames Child's Desk - Eames Office

Eames Child’s Desk

The Eames Child’s Desk is a molded plywood desk or play table, and the largest of the three designs for Children brought out by Charles and Ray Eames in 1945. It is the same form as the Childs Stool but scaled upward, so a child sitting on the chair could use it as a desk or a play table.

The Eames Children’s furniture (some of which is on display at MoMa) can be traced back to the design breakthrough of the Eames Molded Plywood Leg Splint. In producing the plywood leg splint, Charles and Ray developed a method of making compound curves in plywood, using a technique they learned from dressmakers. They cut holes and put darts in the plywood to achieve the final result.

This desk and the child’s chair and stool have a form of dart on the sides, which form the legs. That cut-out area not only defines the legs but also makes it possible, technically speaking, to mold the wood. Without those darts, without those triangular-shaped holes for legs, the plywood would split.