Modern furniture disasters, Herman Miller Eames walnut stool

You can't be interested in modern design without running into the Eames, Ray and Charles, Charles and Ray, the husband and wife team who brought us a myriad of furnishings made of bent plywood. And if you've ever looked anywhere other than La-Z-Boy, who incidentally are actually starting to make some cool stuff, for furniture you've heard of Herman Miller. Put two powerhouses of modern design together and what do you get? Another piece of overpriced crap.

The Eames walnut stools, sold by Herman Miller for a mere $750, each.



"Made of solid walnut, these 15-inch-high stools can be used anywhere and are beautifully versatile. Besides being places to sit, they also serve as low tables, display surfaces or simply objects to be admired."

I have three of these, what the fuck was I thinking.

First of all, these are not a solid piece of walnut which is turned. They are made up of many smaller pieces glued together and actually have air voids inside of them at the joints. Do we say plywood is "solid" wood, no, do we say particle board is "solid" wood, no, these are not "solid" wood. They are composites of wood, glue, and worst of all, air.

Second, they are generally useless as tables, both the top and bottom are concave, you put a drink on it and you instantly start worrying about it falling over. Books? Well, unless you put big books on it, your book pile can't go very high. Maybe a single copy of Powers Of Ten. I know my bank account was reduced by a few powers of ten.

As a stool, well, they work, you can actually sit on it, too bad 15 inches is not very high, maybe LeCorbusier and the Eames think the future is full of small people.

I actually like to use things I buy, so I have been using these stools for 6 years or so, during the six years, two of them have come apart, like so:



For 750 bucks you'd think Herman Miller could spring for some more glue. The first one came apart pretty early in the game, after only a year or so. The second one came apart recently and is now in the basement aka The Shop. I will dump some wood glue on the surfaces which should have been glued to begin with, pile on a set of Britannica's and it will be better than new.

The joining of these two pieces just irritates the hell out of me. The pins are set correctly in the smaller piece, but the holes in the larger piece are drilled twice in increasing size, so only the tips of the pins can be effectively glued. After some use they simply give way and the whole piece pops off.

How does such poor construction last for so long? These things were designed over 50 years ago. Have they only recently started making them this way? Have all the stools that came before gone unused, mere showpieces? Are the owners too embarassed to admit they wasted a lot of money on a piece of junk?

Unfortunately Emma doesn't fit on the Eames stool, if she could she would, don't worry, we have more of her in the queue.

Oh yes, I have an Aeron, it's in the queue also.