The Organic Chair, designed in 1940 by Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen, is a landmark in the history of American modernist furniture. Developed for the Museum of Modern Art’s Organic Design in Home Furnishings competition in New York, the chair introduced a new way of thinking about form, structure, and comfort in modern design.

Unlike conventional chairs of the period, which consisted of separate seat and back elements, the Organic Chair was conceived as a single-piece, three-dimensional, ergonomically shaped shell made from molded plywood. Although the necessary production technology was not yet available, Eames and Saarinen produced the prototypes by hand, pushing the boundaries of material experimentation and design thinking.

The chair emerged from the influential environment of the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, where both designers were studying at the time. Its development coincided with key encounters that would shape the future of modern design, including Charles Eames’s first collaboration with Ray Kaiser, later known as Ray Eames.

Today, the Organic Chair is recognized as a foundational work that anticipated the success of later molded plywood furniture and played a crucial role in defining the language of postwar modern design.