Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, and Charlotte Perriand (image)
Like many women during the golden age of Modern architecture, Charlotte Perriand was obscured by the shadow of a man. In her case, it was Le Corbusier. Fortunately, more careful examinations of history are allowing her light to shine more brightly from the shadows. For example, Perriand's name now appears as part of the design team (along with Corbu's and Pierre Jeanneret) on the classic Grand Confort which arrived in 1928 as well as on the Chaise Longue, also from 1928, among (many) others.
After a decade with Corbusier, Perriand left his studio to work under her name in 1937. Although never achieving the same recognition Corbusier did for his work, Perriand had an impressive career amply dolloped with stunning designs. One of my favorites are her bookshelves.
As the story goes, Perriand was inspired by seeing Japanese shelves in the 40s and 50s on trips to Japan that were "arranged on the walls, in the form of a cloud." By 1955, she had released her Modern modular interpretation of them, naming them Nuage, French for cloud.
If Perriand was woefully neglected during her career (compared to Corbu), she isn't today. A set of her shelves at the auctions require cash north of $100,000! My absolute favorite arrangement is this classic set from 1958:
This is the most cloudlike of her arrangements (by my eye) and can be yours for a mere $114,450.
Obviously, that ain't gonna happen with our budget (and it would be a crime to buy it and actually use it as shelving). But the concept is easy enough to recreate (although not as eloquently). And we are doing just that as an homage to Ms Perriand!
The original was all made of wood due to the war. After the war, Perriand spec'd aluminum for the black bits shown above. That would be difficult to reproduce as a hobbyist. Since we have befriended a Cloudcroft-El Paso furniture-maker who is good with wood and steel and loves matte black and minimalism, we are seeking to approximate the above shelf for the hallway to the primary bedroom, a wall of which is reserved for shelving (the wall on the right):
With steel and all that wood, I modified the design such that the black support units are centered on the studs so we can adequately affix the floating bookshelf to the wall. Also, we really want to leave space on the wall to hang art that can be seen when leaving the primary bathroom.
Cassina still makes this shelving at a cost of about 10 grand if I recall correctly. They also helpfully provide dimensions for the unit which I then adjusted to fit our wall, line up with the studs, and leave a space outside the bathroom for art. I honored Perriand's version by leaving it as it was (outside of the above changes) and then winged a shelf for the rest of the wall that (hopefully) complements her design. I generated half a dozen versions of "my" shelf and saw how they looked next to hers before settling on the one we settled on. (I'm seeing now that maybe that 6-incher should be moved a stud to the left, so I may change that...).
One might question the ethics of using these designs as inspiration. Perriand is long gone, and I have no idea where the licensing fees Cassina pays goes. Blu Dot clearly ripped off Perriand's design, so we're ripping off someone who ripped off someone else. This maintains the long tradition of design borrowing both in architecture and furniture. Interestingly, West Elm took some heat for apparently "ripping off" several mid-century designs, including Perriand's cloud shelves (a piece [West Elm's] I would love to have). Blu Dot has avoided that public accusation so far despite a more direct borrowing from Perriand, perhaps because they are not as prominent on the national market.
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
