Charlotte Perriand

Charlotte Perriand (Paris, 1903-1999) was a French designer and architect and one of the most emblematic Modern Movement figures. Her contribution to architecture and design was linked to Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, whose offices she joined for an internship in 1927. At the "The Adventure of Furniture" conference held by Le Corbusier in Buenos Aires (1929), he presented Perriand as "our collaborator in furnishing houses", but recent studies have revealed a very different story. The young designer had already made a name for herself with her Bar sous le Toit, exhibited at the Salon d'Automne. The project included furnishings in chrome-plated steel, anodised aluminium and glass, demonstrating that she had distanced herself from the then-dominant Art Deco style.

The story of the famous chaise longue, renamed LC4, is paradigmatic. Perriand designed the chair based on the master's instructions. It was to be a cross between the "resting" armchair designed by Dr Jean Pascaud and Thonet's bentwood rocking chair. In 1929, the patent for the iconic rocking chaise longue was registered under the name of Madame Scholefielf née Perriand Charlotte and Charles-Edouard Jeanneret aka Le Corbusier & André Pierre Jeanneret. During her ten-year stay in the office, she authored other furnishings. Now design icons, they are part of the LC collection produced and distributed by Cassina in the I Maestri line. Perriand herself contributed to relaunching the collection, working closely with the Italian company's technicians from 1978 onwards to delineate production methods that respected the philosophy and designs developed by Le Corbusier, Jeanneret and Perriand in the 1930s.

Charlotte Perriand's contribution to design and architecture did not end after she departed from the studio at 35 rue de Sèvres but was renewed thanks to her fruitful experiences in Japan and Brazil. The designer lived in Japan from 1940 to 1943, where she was appointed "advisor for industrial art" by the Ministry of Trade and Industry, thanks to her friend and colleague Junzō Sakakura. From 1959 to 1970, Charlotte Perriand regularly visited Brazil, which holds an important place in her work. There she became friends with Lucio Costa, Oscar Niemeyer and the key figures of the progressive cultural milieu. This led to projects like the LC35 Maison du Brésil collection, created with Le Corbusier in 1959, the Nuages bookcase collection, and the Accordo coffee tables, which Perriand designed for the retrospective dedicated to her at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in 1985. Today the Perriand archive - managed by her daughter Pernette Perriand and her son-in-law Jacques Barsac - includes furniture and accessory design as well as numerous architectural works. Charlotte Perriand died in Paris in 1999 at the age of 96.

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