Living: Modernism at its mouldiest

When it comes to must-haves for the modern home, you can't go far wrong with the usual suspects: Alessi, Starck, Dixon, Citterio, Jacobsen etc, with plenty of stainless steel, glass bricks and blond wood thrown in for good measure. But if you want to be right there at the top of the style tree you simply can't afford to be without at least one item of furniture by a couple who are widely regarded as the most important designers of the 20th century - Charles and Ray Eames.

The E-word is so hot right now it's practically incandescent. Their work appears regularly in sales of modern design at London's top auction houses, they are to be the subject of a retrospective at the Design Museum next year, and Vitra, manufacturer of desirable office furniture, is celebrating the 40th and 50th anniversaries of two seminal Eames designs, the Lounge chair and the Plywood chair, having this year re-issued the Plywood chair for the first time since it went out of production in the mid-Fifties. Even the current issue of Wallpaper, the style-bible of the moment, focuses heavily on Eames for a feature about choosing chairs for an elegant home office. And in the fashionable enclaves of Upper Street, Islington, Simon Alderson and Tony Cunningham of Twentieth Century Design have chosen to celebrate their first birthday in business with a selling exhibition of work by the Eames duo.

"We're great admirers of theirs and felt that people would like to see a lot of Eames together in one place at one time," Alderson says. "There has definitely been a renewed interest in the furniture - over the last year we have been selling it steadily, and next year looks as if it's going to be really big for Eames."

So who were this legendary pair? Charles, born in 1907 in St Louis, Missouri, was a trained architect with a fascination for technology and new materials. His wife Ray, formerly Bernice Kaiser, was a Californian abstract artist with a passion for textiles and sculpture. Together, throughout the Forties, Fifties and Sixties, they created a huge range of original and attractive furniture, revolutionising production methods and setting new standards for comfort and aesthetics.

Always at the cutting edge of new methods, their first major success was the Plywood Group of chairs and tables; which used a technique for moulding plywood which had developed from their work on leg splints for the US navy during the Second World War. Soon afterwards, in 1950, came a set of glass-fibre arm and side chairs, again made using brand new processes, this time based on wartime radar disks. The first industrially manufactured plastic seating, they were used in cafes, schools, lecture rooms and reception areas around the world.

Later came, among many diverse projects: wire chairs; modular storage units; the iconic Lounge chair, an ultra-comfortable design in padded leather and rosewood veneer; the Lobby chair, which became a cult classic when it was requested by the American chess champion Bobby Fischer for his match against Boris Spassky in 1972; and the Aluminium and Soft Pad groups, a series of subtly modulated metal-and-fabric chairs and tables.

Though many of the designs were practical and hard-wearing, intended for public areas and offices as well as for homes, they were light years away from the dull or the utilitarian. Inspired by nature, by the graphic lines of contemporary artists such as Klee, Miro and Calder, and by the development of new materials and technologies, it was a new language of design that was accessible, fashionable, intelligent and emotionally satisfying. Their work is still innovative. "They exploited materials and techniques to their extremes; you can't take it any further," Alderson says.

"Theirs was a very restrained Modernism, with every component kept to a minimum, and it fits in well with contemporary design. Because of the range of materials used, people can appreciate different parts of their work - there's wood, aluminium for a slightly harder-edged style, and colourful glass fibre which appeals to a younger audience. A lot more people are living in lofts or that type of environment and their furniture is very suitable to that sort of look."

For this show Alderson and Cunningham worked with Vitra, exclusive producers of original-specification Eames in Europe, and Herman Miller, which holds the rights in the USA, to gather a range of designs dating from 1943 to the present, some never before seen in this country. Immediately recognisable are two Lounge chairs (pounds 1,450 or pounds 3,555 with matching ottoman), a set of six Aluminium Group chairs and dining table (pounds 3,300), a selection of Plywood chairs (pounds 500 to pounds 1,500) and three pastel-coloured fibreglass arm chairs (pounds 350 to pounds 750).

There are also some more unusual pieces, including a rare leg splint (pounds 150), two undulating wooden folding screens (pounds 1,200 and pounds 3,000), a low "surfboard" table (pounds 850), a fold-down compact sofa in vibrant cherry, purple, orange and black stripes (pounds 2,200) and an African-inspired walnut stool (pounds 412).

"Our aim with the exhibition was to demonstrate the Eames' extraordinary design abilities in terms of technology, materials and form," Alderson says. "If people could do what they did today - and a few people are experimenting - then they would follow the Eamesian definition of good design, which is to mass-produce furniture that is cheap, comfortable and good-looking."

Twentieth Century Design, 274 Upper St, Islington, London N1 2UA; 0171- 288 1996. `One Year on with Eames' continues until 28 June, Vitra 13, Grosvenor St, London W1X 9FB; 0171-408 1122.