"There are few houses in the history of modern architecture that continue to reward repeated visits in the way the Eames House does," Norman Foster writes in our new book The Eames Houses: Charles and Ray Eames Residential Architecture. (main image above: Charles and Ray near the entrance of their home, the Eames House, c. 1954. © 2026 Eames Office, LLC. All rights reserved.)
Foster first encountered the house, (Case Study House #8—home to Charles and Ray Eames from late 1949 until the end of their lives) in the early 1960s, when he was a young architect, traveling through the United States after completing his studies at Yale.
The recently graduated young man was eager to see firsthand the buildings reshaping architectural thinking. Returning more than sixty years later and seeing the care with which it is now preserved, Foster was struck again by its extraordinary clarity and generosity.
Model for the Shelter House, 1951. © 2026 Eames Office, LLC. All rights reserved.
"It remains as alive, as provocative, and as instructive as it ever was," he writes in the book.
"That endurance is not the result of monumentality or formal daring," he continues. "It arises from ideas—about structure, about living, about pleasure, and about environmental responsibility—that were explored with remarkable consistency across the work of Charles and Ray Eames.
Our book is the first comprehensive overview of Charles and Ray Eames’s residential architecture. It includes several previously unpublished buildings and places the powerhouse couple’s architectural work alongside their widely-known designs in furniture, exhibitions, and film.
The Eames Houses. Charles and Ray Eames – Residential Architecture. Eckart Maise, with text contributions by Catherine Ince and forewords by Norman Foster and Eames Demetrios. Credit: Phaidon
The book presents all eight houses they designed between 1945 and 1955, featuring sketches, drawings, letters, and photographs – including many that have never been published before – alongside newly produced diagrams and models that offer
further insight into their design process.
It is organized into six chapters, one of which is entirely dedicated to Case Study House No. 8 with newly commissioned photography, together with a wealth of materials from the archives of the Eames Office – many of which are published here for the first time.
But let's leave it to Lord Foster to explain more, with the following text abridged from his introduction in the book.
West facade of the Entenza House with hourglass emblem and kitchen entrance covered by canopy. © 2026 Eames Office, LLC. All rights reserved.
"This book captures those ideas with precision and restraint. By focusing on the Eameses’ residential architecture as a coherent body of research, it allows us to understand their houses not as isolated objects, but as experiments within a much larger inquiry— both by the Eameses and the circles of architecture and design practitioners in which they moved—into how we live."
Ray’s paper collages explore compositions of materials, colors, and graphic patterns of the Eames House, 1948. © 2026 Eames Office, LLC. All rights reserved.
"It is true that the Eames House has often been treated as a singular icon, yet this publication shows convincingly that it was neither accidental nor singular. It emerged from a sustained engagement with prefabrication, industrial materials, and systems thinking that ran through the Case Study House Program and beyond. The projects documented here—both built and unbuilt—demonstrate an extraordinary commitment to architecture as a process of testing, iteration, and learning."
The Eames Houses. Charles and Ray Eames – Residential Architecture. Eckart Maise, with text contributions by Catherine Ince and forewords by Norman Foster and Eames Demetrios. Credit: Phaidon
"For the Eameses, the house was not an object to be perfected, but a framework capable of accommodating change and contradiction. What distinguishes their work, and what this book makes abundantly clear, is their refusal to separate architecture from its contents or from the lives it supports."
The space beneath the proposed Bridge House can be used as a carport, and access to the house is via a spiral staircase. © 2026 Eames Office, LLC. All rights reserved.
"The Eames House was inseparable from its furniture, its toys, its films, and the accumulation of objects that gave it warmth and character. It was complete, yet open-ended; industrial in its means, yet domestic in its effect. I have always had the sense that it could be assembled, disassembled, and reassembled—a do-it-yourself simplicity—without ever feeling temporary or provisional."
This is just a small glimpse of Norman Foster's thoughts on the Eames House and our new book. To read the rest of what he has to say get a copy of The Eames Houses: Charles and Ray Eames Residential Architecture.
A model of the Billy Wilder House's outdoor pavilion and facade, overlooking Sunset Boulevard. © 2026 Eames Office, LLC. All rights reserved.
As Lord Foster says in his wrap up: "This book succeeds in showing why the Eameses’ residential architecture remains so influential: not because it offers a style to imitate, but because it embodies an attitude—to materials, to systems, and, above all, to life itself. It is a valuable contribution to scholarship and a timely reminder that architecture, at its best, is an act of optimism grounded in reality."
