Architecture and Furniture around the world #Charlotte Perriand

The architect and designer Charlotte Perriand is mostly known because of her relationship with Le Corbusier and her partnership in the design of the LC furniture series, first displayed in the Salon d’Automne in Paris 1929. However, the radical modernity of Perriand’s early interior designs, such as the bar sous le toit that she designed for her own apartment and showed in the Salon des Artistes Décorateurs in 1927, convinced Le Corbusier to hire her for developing furniture and interior design at his studio.

In 1940 she moved to Tokio as a consultant for industrial design invited by Junzô Sakakura, a former colleague in Le Corbusier’s studio. During her stay in Japan and Vietnam she left an important mark on modern Japanese design, but she also assimilated a taste for craftsmanship and a sensibility that were characteristic of her subsequent work. She organised there the exhibition “Sélection, tradition, creation” in Tokio and Osaka and designed several pieces of furniture, such as a revision of her famous chaise longue that used the flexibility of bamboo.

Perriand had achieved the fusion of European industrial style and Japanese traditional styles. Kenzo Tange, 1955

Back in France, she established her own studio for architecture, furniture and interior design, but she also worked together again with Pierre Jeanneret, Jean Prouvé o Le Corbusier in the design of minimum dwelling units and their equipment. Perriand’s relation with Japan is clear in some of her later works such as the interior design of the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Paris (1966-1969) or the Tea Pavilion for the UNESCO (1993).