Eames Wire Base Table from Herman Miller^®

Small Wonder

There's no end to the things you can do with this smart little table. Line a few of them up to work like a coffee table. Use them as bedside tables. Stack one on top of another to serve as an end table next to a sofa. Scatter them around a room. Serve hors d'oeuvres and drinks on them.

The table's compact size—13 ¼ inches deep, 15 ½ inches wide, 10 inches high—and light weight make it easy to move to wherever you need a small, attractive surface. You can even stack them out of the way when you're not using them.

A LIttle Eames

Any interior can be brightened up with a little Eames, and these small tables bear all the hallmarks of classic Eames design—the use of welded wire rods in the base, molded plywood in the surface, and a 20-degree beveled edge that reveals the essential material, the wood plies, beneath the surface.

Make Your Own

The base—two U-shaped steel rods attached to the top, with cross members for added stability—is available in powder-coat white, black, or zinc. The top is made of seven layers of Baltic birch plywood sandwiched between ash veneer or high-pressure laminate in black or white.

Design Story

"Fantastic Things…Made of Wire"

The late 1940s and early 1950s were very fruitful years for the Eames design studio. During this time, Charles and Ray Eames were experimenting with new materials and technologies in their attempts to make distinctive, affordable, lightweight furniture for American homes.

Having developed innovative ways to mold plywood, Charles began to take note of the "fantastic things being made of wire." That fascination led the designers to experiment with metal wire rods and mesh and eventually to develop a mass-production technique for welding wire rods—an innovation that resulted in many pieces that have become classics of modern design, including wire chairs, plastic chairs with wire bases, storage units, and the elliptical table.

Compact and Lightweight Results

Another result was this compact table, introduced in 1950. The Eameses used it to conduct chanoyu, the traditional Japanese tea ceremony, for special guests, including sculptor Isamu Noguchi and film pioneer Charlie Chaplin. Today these lightweight, diminutive tables stand on their own, next to beds and chairs as an accompanying surface, or on top of each other in a convenient stack.