When we say the names Ray & Charles Eames, everyones initial thoughts go towards the iconic Eames chair and rightly so, the Eames chair has been a pinnacle of not only industrial design but the identity and design method has rippled across many other aspects of the design world and we are still seeing the influence today (even if 99% of them are nasty knock-offs)

However, we feel the unsung hero of the Eames dynasty is that of the Tandem Seating designed in 1962 this iconic silhouette was commissioned by a friend and architect Eero Saarinen. Saarinen wanted something that acted as community seating, something modular and unobtrusive to public spaces & waiting rooms. 

Eero Saarinen had just finished the new Dulles Airport terminal in Washington, D.C and needed this specific kind of seating for the new terminal. The Tandem Seating was the perfect addition to these bustling metropolis centers, simply because Ray & Charles designed a form of seating that was extremely durable, using high quality fabrications and construction techniques that dealt with a high amount of wear & tear, and when the seating did take a bit of a hit after some time they designed them in a modular way so components could be easily fixed and replaced by any ordinary person. Genius.

The Tandem Seating these days is owned by Vitra who still produce it to this day, This timeless silhouette is still the most popular transit seating across airports & terminals around the world. 

If you fancy yourself one of the chairs head to 

https://www.vitra.com/en-un/product/eames-tandem-seating-ets