Charlotte Perriand

Charlotte Perriand
Born October 24, 1903
Paris, France
Died 27 October 1999 (aged 96)
Nationality French
Occupation Architect

Charlotte Perriand (24 October 1903 – 27 October 1999), was a French architect and designer. Her work aimed to create functional living spaces in the belief that better design helps in creating a better society. In her article L’Art de Vivre from 1981 she states “The extension of the art of dwelling is the art of living- living in harmony with man’s deepest drives and with his adopted or fabricated environment.” [1]

Early life

Perriand was born in Paris, France to a tailor and a seamstress. In 1920 she enrolled in the Ecole de L'Union Centrale de Arts Decoratifs ("School of the Central Union of Decorative Arts") to study furniture design from 1920 until 1925.

Career

Siège pivotant (1927), Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris

After applying to work at Le Corbusier's studio in 1927 and being famously rejected with the reply "We don’t embroider cushions here", Perriand renovated her apartment into a room with a large bar made of aluminum glass and chrome. She recreated this for the Salon d’Automne, gaining notice from Le Corbusier's partner, Pierre Jeanneret, convincing Corbusier to offer her a job in furniture design. There, she was in charge of their interiors work and promoting their designs through a series of exhibitions.[2]

In 1928 she designed three chairs from Corbusier's principles. Each chair had a chromium-plated tubular steel base. At Corbuiser's request a chair was made for conversation: the B301 sling back chair, another for relaxation: the LC2 Grand Comfort chair, and the last for sleeping: the B306 chaise longue.

Leftist

In the 1930s, Perriand’s focus became more egalitarian and populist. Along with designing furniture and living spaces, she was also involved with many leftist organizations such as the Association des Écrivains et Artistes Révolutionnaires, and Maison de la Culture. She also collaborated with the Jeunes in 1937 and help to found The Union des Artistes Modernes.[3] In her designs from that period, rather than using chrome, which proved to be expensive, she began to use traditional materials such as wood and cane, which were more affordable. She also used some handcrafted techniques which she displayed at the 1935 Brussels International Exhibition.[4] Many of her designs from this period were inspired from the vernacular furniture of Savoie where her grandparents lived-a place she visited often as a child.

Japan

In 1940 Perriand traveled to Japan as an official advisor for industrial design to the Ministry for Trade and Industry. While in Japan she advised the government on raising the standards of design in Japanese industry to develop products for the West. On her way back to Europe she was detained and forced into Vietnamese exile because of the war. Throughout her exile she studied woodwork and weaving and also gained much influence from Eastern design. The Book of Tea which she read at this time also had a major impact on her work and she referenced it throughout the rest of her career.[5] Charlotte Perriand took part in the design of the ski resorts of Les Arcs in Savoie. In the 1950s she designed for various corporate service spaces. Perriand's main goal as a designer was to develop affordable, functional, and appealing furniture for the masses.

Some of her work includes:

Charlotte Perriand collaborated with Jean Prouvé through the rest of her career.

The Chaise Longue

Perriand was familiar with Thonet's bentwood chairs and used them often not only for inspiration but also in her designs. Their chaise longue, for this reason, bears some similarity to Thonet's bentwood rocker although it doesn't rock. The chair has double tubing at the sides and a lacquered sheet metal base. The legs unintentionally resemble horse hooves. Perriand took this and ran with it, finding pony skin from Parisian furriers to cover the chaise. Perriand wrote in a memoir, "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".[6] With a chair that reflects the human body (thin frame, cushion/head) and has decorative qualities (fabrication, structural qualities) they accomplished this goal. It wasn't instantly popular due to its formal simplicity but as modernism rose, so did the chair's popularity.

Personal life

In 1926 Perriand married her first husband, Percy Kilner Scholefield, and converted their attic apartment into a ‘machine age’ interior. In 1930 they separated and she moved to Montparnasse.

Timeline

1927 Was interviewed by Le Corbusier on an October afternoon. After a brief glance at her drawings she was rejected and Le Corbusier bid her farewell with the dry comment "We don't embroider cushions here." She left her card with him regardless, and later that year invited Le Corbusier to see her installation at the Bar sous le Toit filled with tubular steel furniture at the Salon d'Automne, after looking at her creation, Nuage Bookshelf, so impressed him resulting in an invitation by Le Corbusier to join his studio at 35, rue de Sèvres to design furniture and interiors.[7]

1928 Designs three chairs with Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret (the LC2 Grand Confort armchair, the B301 reclining chair and the B306 chaise longue) for the studio’s architectural projects.

1929 Creates a model modern apartment in glass and tubular steel to be exhibited as Equipment d’Habitation (Living Equipment) at the Salon d’Automne.

1930 Travels to Moscow for a Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM) conference and designs fixtures for the Pavilion Suisse at the Cité Universitaire in Paris.

1932 Starts work on the Salvation Army headquarters project in Paris.

1933 Travels to Moscow and Athens to participate in CIAM conferences.

1934 Designs the furniture and interior fixtures for Le Corbusier’s new apartment on rue Nungesser-et-Coli.

1937 Leaves Le Corbusier’s studio to collaborate with the artist Fernand Léger on a pavilion for the 1937 Paris Exhibition and to work on a ski resort in Savoie.

1939 When World War II begins, she leaves Savoie to return to Paris and to design prefabricated buildings with Jean Prouvé and Pierre Jeanneret.

1940 Sails for Japan where she has been appointed as an advisor on industrial design to the Ministry of Trade and Industry.

1942 Forced to leave Japan as an “undesirable alien” but is trapped by the naval blockade and spends the rest of the war in Vietnam, where she marries her second husband, Jacques Martin, and gives birth to a daughter, Pernette.

1946 Returns to France and revives her career as an independent designer and her collaboration with Jean Prouvé.

1947 Works with Fernand Léger on the design of Hôpital Saint-Lo.

1950 Designs a prototype kitchen for Le Corbusier’s Unité d'Habitation apartment building in Marseille.

1951 Organises the French section of the Triennale di Milano.

1953 Collaborates on design of the Hotel de France in Conakry, Guinea

1957 Designs the League of Nations building for the United Nations in Geneva.

1959 Works with Le Corbusier and the Brazilian architect Lucio Costa on the interior of their Maison du Brésil at the Cité Universitaire in Paris.

1960 Collaborates with Ernő Goldfinger on the design of the French Tourist Office on London’s Piccadilly.

1962 Begins a long-running project to design a series of ski resorts in Savoie.

1985 Retrospective of her work at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.

1998 Publication of her autobiography, Une Vie de Création, and presentation of a retrospective at the Design Museum in London.

1999 Charlotte Perriand dies in Paris.

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Charlotte Perriand.
  1. ↑ Mcleod
  2. ↑ Hinchman
  3. ↑ Mcleod
  4. ↑ steel to bamboo
  5. ↑ Mcleod
  6. ↑ Hinchman
  7. ↑ http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/e4d5d424-3587-11e3-b539-00144feab7de.html#axzz2jAPBEC9w

http://designmuseum.org/design/charlotte-perriand

Bibliography

External links