Le Corbusier Chairs
Le Corbusier, a pioneer in modern architecture, is considered to be one of the great architects and designers of the 20th century. A French urbanist, designer, architect, writer, and painter, since his death in 1965, there has been scholarly debate and differing opinions about his importance in the history of architecture. But there is no dispute about his major contributions to the world of furniture design, and his iconic Corbusier Chairs have continued to be popular and sought after in contemporary homes and offices.
Le Corbusier was born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris in La Chaux-de-Fonds, a small city in north-western Switzerland, in the Jura mountains. He was attracted to the visual arts and studied at the La-Chaux-de-Fonds Art School. In 1908, He studied architecture in Vienna with Josef Hoffmann, and in 1910-1911 he worked near Berlin for the architect Peter Behrens, where he might have met Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius.
He was a pioneer in studies of modern high design and was dedicated to providing better living conditions for the residents of crowded cities. His career spanned five decades, with his buildings constructed throughout central Europe, India, Russia, one in North and several in South America.
His contributions to architecture have been argued about since his death, because architectural values vary in modern architecture between different schools of thought and among practicing architects. While his urban designs have been criticized, in his later architecture, he expresses a deep understanding of the impact on society of the modern age, particularly the automobile and the growth of population.
However, his contributions to the world of furniture design have never been disputed, and several of his designs have become icons of 20th century furniture, still used widely today.
The world of furniture design.
In his early training in the Arts and Crafts style, Le Corbusier learned that all the aspects and details of interior design were also the province of the architect. During his early years in Paris Le Corbusier worked as a decorator and purchased items for his Swiss clients. He also began to design furniture for houses and offices in La Chaux de Fonds, in a Biedermeier style. For these residences, he often used Thonet bentwood chairs, and incorporated simple tribal rugs and white cotton curtains. Metal tables or beds were constructed for him by carpenters on the site and everything else was integrated into the “architecture” such as shelves, cupboards, lighting fixtures.It wasn't until 1928 that Le Corbusier designed any significant pieces of furniture.
Mart Stam, Marcel Breuer (see BreuerChair.org web site), and Mies van der Rohe were already creating tubular-steel furniture designs, and these were becoming the standard solution for modern interiors.
As the villas of his wealthy clients were nearing completion, le Corbusier decided to design his own “modern furniture.” Several of these chair and table designs continue to be extraordinarily popular today in both residential and office environments.
At this time, Le Corbusier invited an architect named Charlotte Perriand to join his project. Her ability to deal with modern materials and technology led Le Corbusier to hire her, and from 1927 to 1937 she expanded on the ideas on domestic interior design that he advocated in his writings.
According to Perriand, Le Corbusier’s books Vers une architecture (1923) and L’Art décoratif d’aujourd’hui (1925) had encouraged her to search for a style relevant to the ‘machine age’. Her roof-top bar (‘Bar sous le toit’), exhibited in 1927 by the Société des Artistes Décorateurs, was made of sheet-metal, tubular steel and aluminium.
Perriand and Le Corbusier, and with collaboration from his cousin Pierre Jeanneret, proceeded to design and create a line of furniture that combined metal and cushioning to create a modern yet elegant design.
Perriand oversaw the production of prototypes for the elegant tubular-steel furniture designed by the studio between 1928 and 1930 -- the ‘siège tournant’, ‘casiers métalliques’, ‘table extensible’, chaise-longue, ‘chaise à dos basculant’ and ‘grand confort’. She supervised the installation of interior fittings for Le Corbusier’s Villa La Roche, his Pavillon Suisse and his Cité de Refuge (Salvation Army hostel), all in Paris, in 1928, 1930–32 and 1932 respectively. The line of furniture was expanded for Le Corbusier's 1929 Salon d'Automne installation, Equipment for the Home.
Unveiling of Three Iconic Designs
In his 1925 book L'Art Décoratif d'aujourd'hui , Le Corbusier defined three different types of furniture :
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type-needs,
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type-furniture, and
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human-limb objects.
In the third, he defined human-limb objects as: "Extensions of our limbs and adapted to human functions that are type-needs and type-functions, therefore type-objects and type-furniture."
"The human-limb object is a docile servant. A good servant is discreet and self-effacing in order to leave his master free. Certainly, works of art are tools -- , beautiful tools. And long live the good taste manifested by choice, subtlety, proportion, and harmony".
Based on this concept, the three pieces of tubular-steel furniture that Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand designed were first shown in the gallery of the Villa La Roche, Paris, and in the library and study of the Villa Church, Ville d’Avary, Paris.
These three designs, now considered to be icons of 20th centry furniture, were each created for a different use:
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The active or purposeful mode was represented by the Chaise a Dos Basculant, the LC1, and was used as an office chair. Its design was adapted from the colonial officer's chair with leather straps known as a “Safari” chair.
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The comfortable chair or "Grand Confort" LC2 and LC3 was a tubular steel version of the Maples club armchair.
- The Chaise Longue LC4 was designed for total relaxation and was based on a patent pivoting chair known as the “Surrepos” which Le Corbusier had seen in a magazine.
