Charlotte Perriand

In 1927, at the age of 24, Charlotte Perriand designed a rooftop bar for the Salon d’Automne that drew the attention of Le Corbusier. Upon seeing the anodized aluminum and chromed steel furniture that Perriand had designed for the bar, the famed Corbusier invited Perriand to join the Le Corbusier studio.

For the next 10 years, Perriand participated in the designs issued from the Le Corbusier studio, including the first tubular steel designs for systematized furnishings known as “Equipement intérieur de l’habitation” (1928–1929). Hard-edged and severely functional, the collection reflected strict ideas about moral and physical fitness. The best known of this group is the LC4 Chaise Longue. Perriand also collaborated with Le Corbusier and his cousin Pierre Jeanneret in the design of the LC2 and LC3 Collections (1928), which epitomize the International Style.

Perriand and Jeanneret again collaborated in founding the Union des Artistes Modernes (UAM), where she began to exhibit under her own name in 1931. In 1940, together with Jeanneret, Jean Prouvé and Georges Blanchon, Perriand established an architectural office for the design of prefabricated aluminum buildings. Over the next three decades, Perriand continued to design buildings, interiors and furniture, notably a prototype kitchen for Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation, the London office for Air France and conference rooms for the United Nations in Geneva.

Perriand also produced craft-based designs, such as the diminutive Synthese des Arts Chair (1955), and collaborated with artist Fernand Léger. She is one of the most remarkable figures in the development of modernist design.