Herman Miller DKR Wire Chair

In 1951, Charles and Ray Eames met the challenge of making a reasonably priced, quality chair that was light yet strong. Their solution - the Eames wire chair. It featured a sculpted look, comfort, and practicality which made It an immediate hit. Today's versions remain true to the original design, materials, and detailing.

They made the rim of the chair a lighter-gauge wire and doubled it for stability to achieve strength requirements, an organic shape, and cost restraints. This advance won them the first American mechanical patent for design.

The airy silhouette of the wire chair is achieved by wires, cross-woven and positioned on a bent-wire, welded chrome base, also called the 'Eiffel Tower' base. The chair's organic shape fits the contours of the body making the wire chair a perfect choice for residences and workplaces alike. Also available with standard wire seat and back, or with a criss-cross two-piece leather pad (the 'bikini'). Leather seat pad is available in your choice of three colors.

In the early 1950s, the Eames office investigated bent and welded wire as the basis for furniture. Inspired by trays, dress forms, and baskets, the office developed a variety of pieces, including Eames wire chairs.

They made the rim of the chair a lighter-gauge wire and doubled it for stability to achieve strength requirements, an organic shape, and cost restraints. This advance won them the first American mechanical patent for design.

The chair was marketed by Herman Miller until 1967 and reintroduced in 2001.

Designed in 1951, the Eames' wire chairs are essentially a 3-D line drawing in space of the earlier fiberglass chair. Almost invisible in bulk form, this chair, in it's many configurations, was constructed of resistance-welded metal rods spaced for support. The wire chair was available with a wide variety of covers including leather, vinyl and fabric patterns designed by Eames friend, Alexander Girard. Fabrication of the wire chairs was another example of the Eames' converting war technologies to the peacetime production of well-designed consumer goods. Wire rod was already being used as a structural design element in many of the Eames' other furniture designs, including the Storage Unit Series of multi-colored cabinets and several low table wire bases.

The wire mesh shell seat concept was further developed dramatically in Diamond chairs (later known as Bertoia chairs) designed by Harry Bertoia (1915-1978) and introduced by Knoll in 1952 in both low and high-back models. Bertoia, a sculptor and furniture designer who was at Cranbrook with Eames and had worked with Eames on chairs.

(dining height k-wire shell r-wire base)

(pivot k-wire shell wood base)

19" w | 21.25" d | 32.75" h | seat; 18.5" h