French Class

A new exhibition at Paris’ Fondation Louis Vuitton invites visitors to make themselves at home with the works and teachings of Charlotte Perriand.

- Nick Vinson

This October, the Fondation Louis Vuitton is dedicating all of its 11 galleries, covering the four floors of the Frank Gehry-designed building in Paris’ Bois de Boulogne, to the pioneering French architect and designer Charlotte Perriand (1903-1999). Including 180 pieces of design and 180 artworks by 17 different artists, drawn from the Archives Charlotte Perriand, but also from private collectors, international museums and the Italian furniture brand Cassina, the show shines the spotlight on an exceptional woman who defined an entirely new way of living, and narrates the evolution from modern to contemporary society.

Reconstruction is the show’s modus operandi. Exhibitions and interiors devised by Perriand have been reassembled to her exact specifications. Her groundbreaking tubular chrome furniture, created alongside Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, and later, independently designed pieces in wood and bamboo come to life in their original context. Perriand liked to juxtapose her pieces with artwork from the likes of Fernand Léger, Pablo Picasso, Hans Hartung and Alexander Calder, and these too have been painstakingly sourced to recreate her intended displays.