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Powers of Ten

posted on Oct 26 2010

• by Tine Castelein

10/10/10 was a special celebration at the Eames office. Design lovers will know about this magic duo and in case you don't, here is a little refresher. Charles and Ray Eames are among the finest designers of the 20th century. They are best known for their groundbreaking contributions to architecture, furniture design, industrial design and manufacturing. The legacy of this husband and wife team includes more than 75 films that reflect the breadth and depth of their interests.

Powers of Ten short film

One of those films is Powers of Ten, a 1968 American documentary short film written and directed by Ray Eames and her husband, Charles Eames, re-released in 1977 and distributed by IBM. The film has a running time of only 9 minutes and is based on the 1957 book Cosmic View by Kees Boeke and Charles' Cranbrook dialogues with Eliel Saarinen. It gives a visceral sense of exponential growth by depicting the scale of the Universe through factors of 10, zooming out from a scene of a couple on a picnic blanket, to the (then) observable universe, and back down to the protons and neutrons of a carbon atom in the picnicker's hand. Every 10 seconds the view is from 10 times further away. In all, more than 40 Powers of Ten are visualized seamlessly.

Over ten million people have seen the film and it continues to be shown in classrooms and lots of other places. The film's importance only grows. Scale is not precisely just size, it is the relative size of things. As Eames Demetrios, director of the Eames Office, has said:

Scale is the new geography. So many of our challenges today are ultimately matters of scale. To be a good citizen of the world and have a chance to make it a better place, a person must have a real understanding of scale.

Anyone living in or visiting Southern California is welcome to visit the Powers of Ten Exhibition at the Eames Office in Santa Monica from now until the end of the year. To see what we have in store from Charles and Ray Eames go visit their designer page.