by Janet Ramin with The Sheffield School of Interior Design

Charlotte Perriand debuted her first design work in 1927 at the Salon D'Automne in Paris. The design, Bar sous le Toit or rooftop bar, attracted great acclaim. She was only 24 years old but through a serendipitous encounter with Paris design elite, the event marked the beginning of her rise in the design world.

Born in Paris in 1903, Charlotte Perriand went on to study at the Ecole de L'Union Centrale des Arts Decoratifs under the aegis of French designer, Henri Rapen. After she graduated, she tried to find work at furniture studios but hated the design aesthetics of the current ateliers. In the 1920's, the prevailing style was the Beaux-arts, made famous by the legendary architectural school — Ecole des Beaux-arts in Paris. Beaux-arts or "fine arts" espoused the classical principles of symmetry and ornamentation through use of columns, medallions, swags, and garlands. Rebelling against this backward looking philosophy, Perriand wanted to incorporate the modern materials of steel, glass, and aluminum into the everyday world.

A friend of hers introduced Perriand to the works of the famous French architect Le Corbusier, including L'art Decoratif d'Aujourd'hui (Today's Decorative Arts). Inspired by his work, Perriand immediately applied for a design position at Le Corbusier's atelier. She was dismissed with a condescending comment, "we don't embroider cushions here."

Undaunted, Perriand tore apart her garret-style apartment and converted one of the largest rooms into a metal and glass bar. Using her home as a canvas, she applied her ideas and continued to create metal tubular furniture out of chrome and aluminum for her "machine age interior." By 1927, she designed enough work to be exhibited at the Salon D'Automne. Upon seeing her rooftop bar design and its furnishings, architect Le Corbusier changed his mind and decided to hire Perriand as furniture designer.

In his workshop, Le Corbusier demanded his designers to specifically meet human needs, calling these furniture "objets-membres" or human limb objects. These objects were to be viewed as the extension of the human form and created to serve human needs. Perriand designed her first furniture for the atelier to meet these human needs. She designed three chairs: one for conversation, one for relaxation and one for sleeping. The chair for conversation, B301 fauteuil dossier or the slingback chair, was made of leather and tubular arms and legs. The chair for relaxation, LC2 Grand Confort, was the square-shaped leather upholstered chunky armchair. The chair for sleeping, the most famous and copied lounge chair, was the B306 chaise longue. Its long sinuous metal curve frame recalls the eighteenth-century recamiers or daybeds.

Throughout the 1930s, Perriand continued to create furniture for Le Corbusier's clients as well as the Parisian salons. Thonet, the French furniture manufacturer, produced several of Perriand and Le Corbusier's furniture. Years later, Perriand once again turned to the radical idea of using more rustic materials such as bamboo and cane to creating more affordable, mass produced furniture. Her chaise longue was recreated in bamboo and is transformed as an outdoor lounge chair.

In 1940, Perriand was invited to Japan to be the official advisor on industrial design for the Ministry of Trade and Industry. She recommended that the Japanese turn their efforts to creating products for export to the West. Unfortunately, her stay was cut short with the outbreak of World War II. Unable to travel back home due to the naval blockades, she stayed in Vietnam for four years until the war ended. There she learned about weaving, woodwork, rattan and other natural products.

Returning to Paris after the war, Perriand collaborated with artist Fernand Leger on the design for a hospital, Hopital Saint-Lo. She also designed Chalet Savoie, a ski resort in her parental home town of Savoie. Other projects included the League of Nations building in Geneva, Air France offices in several cities, and apartment buildings.

In 1998, Charlotte Perriand was honored with a retrospective of her work at the Design Museum in London. In the same year, her autobiography, Vie de Creation or Life of Creation was also published. Charlotte Perriand blazed the way for women to be accepted in industrial design — as well as in architecture and interior design — in an era where most women stayed at home. More importantly she accomplished all this while remaining true to her ideals and modern aesthetics of design.

–Janet Ramin The Sheffield School of Interior Design