Designing a chair is an eternally tempting but precarious prospect: the humble seat, legs, and back must resolve the essential challenges of structure, function, form. And the end result is inevitably compared to a canon of predecessors. How is it, then, that Charles and Ray Eames produced a number of iconic chairs, while also leaving their mark as architects, filmmakers, educators, and industrial designers? A new collection of historical materials, titled An Eames Anthology, attempts to delve into the Eameses' body of work to discover the methodology and ideas that drove their designs. Edited by writer and curator David Ostroff, the book contains a range of texts including letters, interviews, lectures, and more. Some documents are previously unpublished; Ostroff did extensive research and editing to discover and distill the anthology's contents.

While heavily text-based'relying on the Eameses' words to best communicate their thoughts'the book includes ample historic photography and doesn't feel dense. It covers the couple's work from 1941, when they met at Cranbrook, to 1986, not long before Ray died. But the Eameses are well known to designers everywhere, so the book raises the question: is there new information to be gleaned from these documents?