Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity Shares Museum Plans

It’s hard to think of two designers whose work has been as influential as that of Charles and Ray Eames — or whose work has held up as well over the decades since it was first produced. There’s a very good reason why Eames Chairs are still very much in demand, after all, and why the work being done by the Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity has been so informative.

If the idea of immersing yourself in all things Eames sounds intriguing, the Eames Institute presently offers tours of its archive. But that’s about to change; this week, the Eames Institute announced plans for a full-scale museum and campus, located in Novato, California in a space previously occupied by Birkenstock and McGraw-Hill. As befits a space dedicated to design, the architecture firm behind the look of the new space is also notable: Herzog & de Meuron, known for spaces like Beijing National Stadium and an extension to the Walker Art Center.

“To share my grandparents’ vision with the world is the honor of a lifetime,” said the Intitute’s chief curator, Llisa Demetrios, in a statement. “Ray and Charles’s boundless curiosity for solving problems through design has been at the core of the Eames Institute’s mission, and this expansion will allow us to share those gifts with our community on an even larger scale.”

The new Eames Institute space in Novato is about a half-hour drive away from the Eames archives in Richmond, California, and just under an hour north of San Francisco.

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As for what visitors to the new museum should expect, the Institute’s announcement mentions (as one would expect) plenty of exhibits from the Eames archives as well as other design-centric programs. There will also be “art and design exhibitions, makerspaces and workshops, educational programming, accessible public open space [and] culinary and retail experiences.” Given that the campus’s main building has been vacant since 2020, this should be an intriguing return for an already-distinctive space.

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Tobias Carroll

Tobias Carroll lives and writes in New York City, and has been covering a wide variety of subjects — including (but not limited to) books, soccer and drinks — for many years. His writing has been published by the likes of the Los Angeles Times, Pitchfork, Literary Hub, Vulture, Punch, the New York Times and Men’s Journal. At InsideHook, he has…