‘California Design, 1930-1965’

In 1949, on a bluff in Los Angeles, Charles and Ray Eames built the experimental Case Study No. 8. Commissioned by Arts & Architecture magazine in a scheme to promote affordable postwar housing, the structure features a steel-and-glass Mondrian-like exterior and an eclectic interior. Eames heirs maintain the property as a sometime residence, but the 17-foot-tall living room is currently empty—its furnishings loaned to a replica of the room at California Design, 1930-1965: Living in a Modern Way, an exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. On display are Eames chairs built with same plywood technology that the couple used in 1943 to make splints and stretchers for the Navy. Through June 3, 2012. • lacma.org