Charles and Ray then set themselves a new problem: How to build a house that would: 1) not destroy the meadow and, 2) “maximize volume from minimal materials”. Using the same off-the-shelf parts, but notably ordering one extra steel beam, Charles and Ray re-configured the House. The new design integrated the House into the landscape, rather than imposing the House on it. These plans were published in the May 1949 of the magazine. It is this design that was built and is seen today.
Charles and Ray moved into the House on Christmas Eve, 1949, and lived there for the rest of their lives. The interior, its objects and its collections remain very much the way they were in Charles and Ray’s lifetimes. The house they created offered them a space where work, play, life, and nature co-existed.
The House has now become something of an iconographic structure visited by people from around the world. The charm and appeal of the House is perhaps best explained in the words of Case Study House founder, John Entenza, who felt that the Eames House “represented an attempt to state an idea rather than a fixed architectural pattern.”