Published in 1973 by Harvard Press, the Eames 'A Computer Perspective' book was a retrospective printed mirrored work of the hugely successful New York exhibition of the same name, sponsored by IBM and created by a collaboration of staff at the original Eames Office in 1971.
The exhibition was highly visual and charted the history of the computer since inception, circa 1890, through to 1950. It did so specifically from the perspective of calculators, computers as statistical machines and logical automata. Whilst the subject of computing today has increased in dimensions since the concept of the exhibition in the 1970's, it is worth remembering the ground breaking nature of the work at the time. The success of the exhibition led to it being installed for over four years and two related films were also released before the book.
Special mention for the book specifically must go to Paul Bruhwiler whom designed its layout as well as Glen Fleck the editor. But the content was very much a collaborative effort of the members of the Eames Office, including of course Charles. Whilst the printed book also included images of the huge wall panels from the exhibition, with mesmerizing overlapping imagery, it also afforded within the space of its pages to fully elaborate on sections and provide a logical chronology of great detail to its readers.
A first edition of the Eames 'A Computer Perspective' book (especially with dust jacket) will always be a collector piece with a good market value and even more so if signed by Charles and Ray, as some were upon its release. A second edition was re-released in the 1990's and whilst still a good find won't match the value of that of the original edition.
| Author | Eames Office |
| Title | A Computer Perspective |
| Publication Year | 1973 |
| Publisher | Harvard Press |
| No. Pages | 177 |
| Dimensions | 9" high x 9" Wide x 0.8" Thick |
The first edition of A Computer Perspective is housed in its distinctive wrap around super fragile dust jacket that resembles grease proof paper
The book details imagery from the hugely successful IBM exhibition the Eames Office created in 1971
The spine of the book only details the name Eames as a collective author, along with the title and publisher name - Harvard
A later 2nd edition of the book was published in 1990 and was given a different look with a predominately black design of cover
