_
Charlotte Perriand was driven by her incredible aesthetic sense paired with an indomitable work ethic. Twenty-four years young, she graduated from L’Union Centrale de Arts Decoratifs and wasted no time pursuing her calling as an industrial designer. She was hard-headed, focused; a woman that knew exactly what she wanted and how to obtain it. Through perseverance, she secured an interview with the world’s leading designer, Le Corbusier. Though not long after their initial encounter Le Corbusier would call upon her for all of his projects dealing with furniture arrangements and colour selections, on this particular October afternoon, he dismissed the bright-eyed, bushy tailed Perriand with a dry and most likely sexist comment “…we don’t embroider cushions here”.
_
Le Corbusier, Percy Scholefield, Charlotte Perriand, George D. Bourgeois, and Jean Fouquet
_
Undeterred and aware of her creative worth, Perriand left her business card with Le Corbusier. Her Nuage Bookshelf was on display at an annual art exhibition, Salon d’Auomme, and caught Le Corbusier’s attention resulting in a personal invitation for her to join his studio and have hand, along side Pierre Jeanneret, in the creation of three of his chrome plated, tubular steel chairs – the LC1, the LC2 Grand Comfort and the LC4 chaise longue. The LC4’s legs resembled horse hooves – Perriand ran with it, sourcing pony skin from Parisian furriers to cover the chaise. In her memoirs she eloquently states “While our chair designs were directly related to the position of the human body…they were also determined by the requirements of architecture, setting, and prestige”.
_
clock-wise from top: LC4, LC1 and LC2 – all currently available from Cassina
_
Perriand traveled to Japan in 1940 as an official advisor for industrial design to the Ministry for Trade and Industry. Her role was to advise the government on raising the standards of design in Japanese industry to develop products for the West. Only two years in, she was forced to leave as an “undesirable alien”. Perhaps unadulterated powerful femininity did not jell with the Japanese sensibilities of that time…
_
Perriand advising Japanese manufacturers
_
Her journey home was hindered by a naval blockade causing her to spend the rest of the Second World War in Vietnam, where she married Jacques Martin and gave birth to a daughter, Pernette.
She returned to France in 1946 as an independent designer creating fruitful collaborations with Jean Prouvé, Fernand Léger, Lucio Costa, Ernő Goldfinger, as well as developing a popular kitchen concept with her old acquaintance Le Corbusier:
_
MoMA Conservators explore Le Corbusier and Perriand’s kitchen concept
_
Some of her better known projects include the Meribel ski resort, the remodelling of Air France’s offices in Paris, London (below right), and Tokyo, and the League of Nations building in Geneva.
_
_
_
Only a few days after her 96th birthday in October of 1999, Charlotte Perriand’s life ended where it began, Paris. Her breadth of work is vast, precise and consistent. Spirits such as Perriand’s transcend the living, echoing through present day, inspiring future and present design leaders leaving a profoundly delicate mark on the furniture industry; humble yet undeniable.
_
_
_
In 2013 at the Design Miami fair, Louis Vuitton realized a beach house concept of her’s, originally designed in 1934, reexposing her seemingly perfect ingenuity in marrying tradition and modernity to a new generation.
Click here to view a slideshow of the beach house ‘La Maison au Bord de L’eau’ on Dezeen.
If you’d like to learn more about Charlotte and experience her designs first-hand, visit us at 50 Water Street to see our gallery display of some of her furniture and photographs, on until October 1st.
