Charlotte Perriand: The most interesting woman in the world of 20th century design (#4)

Designer Sketches

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Charlotte Perriand: The most interesting woman in the world of 20th century design (#4)

Although Perriand began her career steeped in the mindset and political philosophy of modernism, her approach evolved to focus on contextual tradition and artisan craft.

Philip Levy

Nov 14, 2023

Transcript

Close shot of sign in front of building — Plaque commemorating Perriand’s studio in Paris, Chabe01, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Charlotte Perriand is the most interesting woman in the world of 20th century design. Her life story reads like a spy adventure novel.

She helped pioneer the Modernist movement in architecture and interior design; she escaped France as the Germans were invading — on a ship bound for Japan; she hid in an attic with her baby from murderous revolutionaries in Vietnam, avoiding almost certain death; she hiked and skied and built portable shelters in the Alps; she visited her husband in Rio and traveled to exotic locations like Tahiti and the Windward Islands, before they were polluted by tourism; And she designed and oversaw construction of one of the premiere French ski resort destinations.

Through it all, she exhibited a zest for life and a desire to combine technology with arts and crafts to improve people’s lives around the world. Paraphrasing Henry David Thoreau, she exemplified his motto that before you sit down to create, you have to stand up and live life. Her life of creation — the title of her autobiography — was a life of exhilarating experience. It was also a life of wrestling with contradictions: reconciling global modernism with traditional regionalism, technological progress with preservation of culture, and socialist ideals with the totalitarian realities of the 20th century.

In this episode, we’ll explore these themes in Perriand’s own words and reflect on what it might mean for us as designers today.

Outline

Irony of modernism (1:30)
Irony of collectivism (25:42)
Perriand’s move away from modernism (37:36)
Irony of progress (51:39)
Her philosophy (59:59)
Parting thoughts (1:06:43)

References

Charlotte Perriand: A Life of Creation by Charlotte Perriand (Goodreads)
Modern Architecture: A Critical History by Kenneth Frampton (Goodreads)
Towards a New Architecture by Le Corbusier (Goodreads)
A Guide To The World’s Greatest Buildings — Masterpieces of Architecture & Engineering edited by Trevor Howells (Goodreads)
Inside Le Corbusier's Brutalist Radiant City (SkyriseCities)
Habitat 67 as seen from Montreal’s port (Wikipedia)

Discussion about this podcast

Designer Sketches

Learn from history’s most influential product designers. Each episode, I will delve into the work of an impactful designer and share insights to inspire our work.

Design is the fascinating intersection of productive function and emotional form. As thinking beings, we use products to get things done, but as feeling humans, we want to enjoy doing it. This podcast is about the designers who have come before us and wrangled form and function into something that is the essence of beauty.

If you make things, this is for you. Even if you’re not a trained designer, you design something: a business, a service, an event, a message — something that can benefit from the accrued knowledge and experience of the history of design.

As we embark on a new era in technology that will challenge our very notion of humanity, it is more important than ever to learn from the mistakes and mastery of previous designers.

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