The »Organic Armchair« was a submission for the Museum of Modern Art‘s 1940 design competition for »Organic Design in Home Furnishings«. Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen, who that year worked together for the first time, won first prize with their »Organic Armchair«. One of the conditions for competition entries was that the object was suitable for industrial production.

In 1941, the Eames developed a method for threedimensional molding of manufacture the award-winning chair. The 3-D seat, made possible by means of incisions made in the veneer and cutting pieces out of it, was covered in foam rubber and upholstered in fabric. As a result of the war-time economy and the initially high manufacturing costs, despite the original competition brief the prototypes did not go into series production.