Last chance to see: Charlotte Perriand’s life and work explored at London’s Design Museum

Last chance to see: Charlotte Perriand’s life and work explored at London’s Design Museum

The Design Museum presents ‘Charlotte Perriand: The Modern Life’ (on show until 5 September 2021). Through a series of thematic displays, the exhibition showcases the work and ideas of the French architect and designer, presenting her creative process with an impressive series of sketches, photographs, notebooks, as well as furniture design prototypes, final pieces and faithful reconstructions of some of her most famous interiors.

‘Charlotte Perriand: The Modern Life’ at the Design Museum

This new exhibition marks 25 years since Charlotte Perriand’s last exhibition at London’s Design Museum, held in 1996, and was put together in collaboration with the Perriand family and the Fondation Louis Vuitton, with the support of Cassina (whose catalogue includes numerous Perriand furniture reissues), and exhibition design contributions by Assemble and A Practice for Everyday Life. 

‘Charlotte Perriand was a hugely influential figure in design,’ comments Design Museum chief curator Justin McGuirk. ‘Her life spanned the 20th century and her career reflects the twists and turns of the modernist movement.’ 

The Design Museum exhibition explores her work through three thematic sections, which will help outline Perriand’s design approach: ‘The Machine Age’; ‘Nature and the Synthesis of the Arts’; and ‘Modular Design for Modern Living’. Perriand’s creative transition from a modern machine aesthetic to her preference for natural forms sculpted from wood is chronicled through the show, and this process comes together in her all-encompassing vision of a ‘synthesis of the arts’, where design, art and architecture combine. 

Described as ‘a free spirit who championed design for all’, Perriand subscribed to modernist aesthetics that were reflected in her furniture and architecture designs. She famously said ‘dwellings should be designed not only to satisfy material specifications; they should also create conditions that foster harmonious balance and spiritual freedom in people’s lives’, and the Design Museum exhibition helps bring her ideas back to life. 

Charlotte Perriand: her life in art, design and architecture

Charlotte Perriand, perspective drawing of the dining room in the Place Saint-Sulpice apartment-studio, Paris, 1928

Perriand was born in Paris in 1903, and studied furniture design at the École de l’Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs. She came to prominence soon after graduating in 1925, with projects such as the 1927 ‘Bar sous le toit’ (Bar under the roof) created for her own apartment-studio in Paris’ Saint-Sulpice. This minimalist and functional apartment space that she designed for her life and work is faithfully reproduced at the exhibition’s entrance.

Early examples of modular metal furniture, as well as the sketches, models and plans behind the designs form the core of ‘The Machine Age’. Several vignettes recreate Perriand’s interiors, demonstrating the modernity of her aesthetic and approach to space and living. It was during this time that she started working with Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, a decade-long collaboration that resulted in furniture pieces such as the 1928 ‘Chaise longue basculante’ or the ‘Fauteil grand confort’ from the same year, as well as several interiors, including an installation proposing single-room living at the Salon d’Automne in 1929. 

Recreation of the bedroom and bathroom in ‘Un equipement intérieur d’une habitation’ (Equipment for a dwelling), presented at the Salon d’Automne, 1929 (Cassina)

In the 1930s, Perriand’s interest shifted from metal furniture and industrialised production towards nature, and her artistic work took a turn in this direction. Brilliantly exemplified through ‘Nature and the Synthesis of the Arts’, this shift included organic furniture forms in wood and leather, inspired by personal collections of found natural objects such as rocks, sticks and fossils. The exhibition includes black and white photography and experimental sketches; mixed with furniture from the time, these give a sense of how these inspirations were translated through Perriand’s sensibility.

Charlotte Perriand, Gaston Regairaz (architects), Guy Rey-Millet/AAM (site manager), La Cascade residence, Arc 1600, 1967-1969

‘Modular Designs for Modern Living’ forms a synthesis of Perriand’s trajectory through modernity, and shows her work in modular furnishings, interior design and architecture. She strived to create affordable and adaptable interiors, and some of her best known furniture works include bookcase designs originally conceived for student dormitories – a fitting example of democratic design, featuring a simple, modular construction in wood and plastic. The exhibition culminates with the legendary work for the French ski resort Les Arcs in 1968, with a life-sized model and a film that helps visitors immerse themselves in her pragmatic design thinking. 

‘A Perriand interior remains kind of ideal, a harmony of contrasts and disciplines that is difficult to replicate’ – Justin McGuirk

Perhaps most poetically, the show’s last item on display demonstrates Perriand’s curiosity and humour. It’s a vase she had bought in Brazil in the 1960s, made from an everyday plastic bottle that, she had said, captured the essence of good design to be resourceful, intelligent and infused with humanity. 

‘The last time Perriand had an exhibition at the Design Museum, in 1996, she was concerned at first that she was being presented as a furniture designer,’ says McGuirk. ‘Twenty-five years later, there is no risk of any misunderstanding. Here, she is presented as a synthesiser, a collaborator, an integrator. A Perriand interior remains kind of ideal, a harmony of contrasts and disciplines that is difficult to replicate. And it is this ideal that she offered as a framework to those who wished to live a modern life, like her own.’ §