Archetypal Symbols In The Eames House

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Drive down the congested coast highway, past the Santa Monica Pier. Take a right at Chautauqua Boulevard and for the first time you are finally driving at the speed limit uphill on a winding bourgeois road. Walk to the end of an unsuspecting alleyway, past all the gated modern mansions that seem to each exist in their own worlds behind lines of lush green trees and stark white concrete walls. You have arrived at The Eames House, Case Study House #8—the archetypal symbol of modernity. The moment you walk onto the grounds of the house, the world changes—removed from the bustling traffic of Pacific Coast Highway, away from the beachgoers taking in the California summer in the middle of February. The birds chirp, sing, and flutter their wings. The lizards scurry amongst the decaying leaves. The eucalyptus leaves brush against each other as the wind moves past them. Situated on a grassy meadow overlooking the Pacific Ocean, it appears like a secluded Parthenon on the cliff side, overseeing everything on the horizon yet completely hidden from sight. People come to The Eames House to empathize with a revolutionary mode of modern living but rarely do they acknowledge the multitudes of art objects filling the house as separate from the identity of the house itself. The aim of The Eames House is to showcase the “uncommon beauty of common things” with material objects acting as an aid to the narrative of “life in work.” The Eames House creates the atmosphere of an art museum,

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