Works

Information about the work and context of creation

B306 Tilting Chaise Longue

Charlotte Perriand's association with Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret between 1927 and 1937 was very significant since, together with Perriand, they tackled the innovative project for "l'équipement d'intérieur de l'habitation". 

The resulting designs were of great intellectual value and considerable commercial success. The most famous was the 'Tilting Chaise Longue B306 (LC4)', commonly attributed to Le Corbusier, although Perriand's contribution was defining.

The Chaise Longue was presented in Paris in 1929 at the "Salon d'Automne des Artistes Décorateurs" and was first used in the Church of the Villa in Ville-d'Avray.

Le Corbusier called it "the true machine to rest". 

It came onto the market, curiously with little success, as a creation of Le Corbusier's studio. It was produced with tubular steel frames in the hope of lowering costs for mass production, but only 170 examples were sold worldwide in the following decade.

When it was patented, Perriand asked the notary for some specifications: “Please point out that the chair changes function with a simple slide and that no part is mechanical (…). It can be used as an armchair, chaise-longue, reclining chair, like that of doctors to stretch a leg, or even as a wheelchair.”

The Chaise Longue is made of chromed steel tubes with a foam mattress and headrest upholstered in leather. This is fixed and supported on a matte black steel base structure that allows the movement of the seat that slides with the weight of the body without any type of mechanism, to adopt various positions.

Comfortable and functional, it is also the representation of free time from work, the perfect machine for the revenge of your individual freedom and a symbol of free time to read, relax and dream.

522 Tokyo Chaise Longue

This exceptional piece, the '522 Tokyo Chaise Longue' was designed by Charlotte Perriand in 1940, no longer associated with Le Corbusier's studio, and it is a clear example of her interest in the use of organic materials that she used so much in her "post-LeCorbusier" stage.

Tradition, avant-garde and functionality sum up the essence of the Tokyo lounger, a design with Asian features that finds its origins in Perriand's trips to the Japanese country and in her expeditions into nature.

It can be understood as an organic and sustainable reinterpretation of the iconic 'LC4 Chaise Logue' created in 1928 by Perriand, Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, which became famous in 1965 when Cassina produced it.

The backrest and seat of the '522 Tokyo Chaise Longue', first produced by Cassina in 2011, are made up of twelve curved teak or bamboo wood slats and the connecting elements that attach the boards to the bars found underneath are satin brass pins. 

Together with Charlotte Perriand in France, within the modern movement in architecture and design, we find in parallel pioneering architects and designers of the time: the Irish Eileen Gray; Margarete Schüte-Lihotzky, with her extensive work in social housing and her obsession with facilitating work of the woman inside the house so that she has more free time; the Finnish Aino Aalto; the Danish Ragna Grubb, interested in social housing; the Chinese-American Anne Tyng, co-author of the most significant buildings of Louis Khan's office in the 1950s in the US; or Lilly Reich, who promoted Bauhaus designs, among so much productive activity that she had. The designers who came out of the Bauhaus school, such as Marianne Brandt or Gunta Stötzl, among others, must also be highlighted.

Indications

She can be studied on the subjects of:

- History of art

- Furniture design

- Industrial design

- Plastic and audiovisual education

- Technology

Documents