Work and Play

No one can accuse Charles and Ray Eames of not playing nice. While busying themselves with the business of becoming iconoclasts of American design, they somehow managed to also find the time to invent interactive, imaginative children’s toys like this one, created in 1951, and simply packaged as The Toy. A combination of dowels, pipe cleaner connectors and 30″ square and triangular paper panels, the elements were designed to be assembled into sculpture, furniture, or any 3-dimensional structure. The Toy has never been reissued, so only vintage examples survive.

Photo: Wright