Charlotte Perriand
1903 - 1999
Matching objects for the 1949 exhibition (archive Charlotte Perriand)
CHARLOTTE-PERRIAND
Charlotte Perriand was a French architect and
designer. She was born in 1903 in Paris where she
finished her study furniture design at the École de
L'Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs ("School of the
Central Union of Decorative Arts") in 1925. From
1927 until 1937 the worked with Charles-Édouard
Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier, designing
furniture and housing interiors. During this period
she helped to found The Union des Artistes
Modernes (UAM), a movement made up of
decorative artists and architects who tried to make
their work more accessible by using low-cost
materials. In 1937 Charlotte Perriand left Le
Corbusier to start a successful career of her own
with work aimed to create functional living spaces in
the belief that better design helps in creating a
better society.
In 1949 Charlotte Perriand participated in the first
exhibition of the "Formes Utiles" movement, a
French Design group evolved out of the UAM. The
exhibition "Formes Utiles, objets de notre temps"
(Useful forms, objects of our time) took place in the
Museé des Arts Décoratifs (Museum of Decorative
Arts) located in the Palais du Louvre in Paris. For
this exhibition Charlotte Perriand selected the
artwork and matching objects, among which a
Philips Infraphil heat lamp model 7525.
Charlotte Perriand died in 1999 in Paris at the age
of 96. In honour to her work, a retrospective
exhibition was held in the Centre Pompidou in Paris
in 2005. Part of this exposition was a compilation of
the 1949 exhibition in the Museé des Arts
Decoratifs. At the exhibition and in the book
published for this 2005 event, the objects previously selected by Charlotte Perriand
to accomplish the 1949 exhibition were mistakenly suggested as being designed by
Charlotte Perriand. Ever since then the Philips Infraphil heat lamp model 7525 and its
successors are commonly listed as objects designed by Charlotte Perriand. The true
designer of the early Philips Infraphil heat lamps is unknown but most likely an
employee of Philips.
