Airbnb Cofounder Gives US$25 Million Toward Eames Museum in Marin County
Joe Gebbia, a cofounder of the home-rental company Airbnb, has provided more than US$25 million in initial funding for a new museum devoted to the designers Charles and Ray Eames, ARTnews reported.
The museum is being planned by the Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity, a nonprofit organisation, which is a group that exists to serve the public rather than to make profit for owners. Charles and Ray Eames were a married couple who designed furniture, films and exhibitions in the middle of the 20th century. Their archive, the Eames Archives in Richmond, California, holds more than 40,000 objects, including furniture, films, prototypes, exhibition materials and tools.
The museum will sit on the former campus of the Birkenstock shoe company in Novato, in Marin County, just north of San Francisco. The Eames Institute acquired the site in August 2025. A report in Silicon Valley put the purchase price at US$36 million. The institute is aiming to open the museum in 2030.
The Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron will design the building, and the American landscape firm Field Operations will design the grounds. The museum plans to host art and design exhibitions. The Eames Institute said it raised more than US$165 million in contributions from 2021 through 2024.
Gebbia is also known for work outside the art world. He is a board member of the electric carmaker Tesla. He also worked with Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, a US federal cost-cutting effort. President Donald Trump later named him chief design officer of the United States, a role in which he is tasked with redesigning government websites.
Asked about the link, John Cary, the Eames Institute's president and chief executive, said that donors have no outside influence on the institute. He said Gebbia's political views do not reflect those of the Eames Institute.
The Eames Institute publicly launched in March 2022. For now, the project is at the planning stage, with the building, grounds and exhibition program still being developed.
