Charlotte Perriand

Perriand studied design at the École de l'Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs in Paris from 1920 to 1925.¹ In 1927, the Design Museum reports that when she approached Le Corbusier for a position as a furniture designer, he initially declined, saying "We don't embroider cushions here."⁴ She subsequently oversaw furniture and fittings at the studio of Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret from 1927 to 1937.¹

Her early furniture featured metal bases with leather or canvas upholstery, alongside tables utilizing aircraft wing-strut sections.⁴ Her designs were used in a model apartment at Zurich's Werkbundsiedlung Neubühl in 1931.¹

In 1940, Perriand established a Paris office for research into prefabricated buildings.¹ Getty records her as an independent designer in Tokyo in 1941–1942 and in Indochina in 1943–1946; the Design Museum instead describes her as stranded in Vietnam from 1942 to 1946 after attempting to return to France.^1,4 The Design Museum notes that her years in Japan influenced her later work and that from the 1930s onward she increasingly drew inspiration from nature.⁵

Le Corbusier engaged her for interior fittings at Marseille's Unité d'Habitation between 1946 and 1949, and she also worked on the Maison du Brésil in Paris in 1959.³ Perriand coordinated the Les Arcs ski-resort undertaking, which began in Savoy in 1967 with architects, designers, carpenters, and alpine guides meeting to construct what one account calls the first mainstream ski resort.⁶ Elle Decor describes the project as intended to accommodate middle-class families as skiing became less exclusive, and characterizes Perriand as a skier who understood guests' needs.⁶

The Design Museum has described Perriand as a figure whose work was often overshadowed by her better-known male collaborators.⁵ Port magazine has described her influence on the early modern movement as significant and continuing over subsequent decades.³