In 1950, Air France commissioned Charlotte Perriand to design the entire interior of its forthcoming Unité d'Habitation in Brazzaville, Congo. Completed two years later, the residential building, designed by the architects Jean Hébrard, Louis Lefevre, Jean Letu and Pierre Bienvenu for the company's personnel stationed in the then capital of French Equatorial Africa, was a showcase of modern French design. Strongly influenced by Le Corbusier's Cité Radieuse, under construction in Marseille, the Unité d'Habitation Air France was a five-story structure with piloti and a rooftop terrace. It contained nineteen studios, thirty small two-roomed apartments, ten apartments with three or four rooms and a large executive suite for Air France's director adjoining the elegant rooftop terrace (see illustration opposite). Perriand designed the exquisitely landscaped terrace which, with its hanging gardens and an incomparable view of the Congo River including the city of Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) beyond, was often used to host receptions. For the interior, Perriand supplied some of her own designs and some of Jean Prouvé's. It was this project which finally launched the formal and long standing collaboration between the two. Numerous Brazzaville pieces attest to this joint effort, such as the much celebrated tables which pair tropical wood, masterfully carved under Perriand's supervision, with the signature industrial steel legs from Prouvé's Maxéville workshop; as well as the particularly innovative 'Brazza' storage units (which they later patented). While in Brazzaville, Perriand oversaw the execution of many pieces which were fabricated in African wood. She adapted models originally designed for the French market, created entirely new ones (for example the bathroom cabinets) and also developed furniture parts such as table tops and cabinet shelves.

CHARLOTTE PERRIAND (1903-1999)

A LACQUERED STEEL AND OAK STORAGE UNIT, 1952

细节

CHARLOTTE PERRIAND (1903-1999)
A Lacquered Steel and Oak Storage Unit, 1952
manufactured by Les Ateliers Jean Prouvé, Maxéville, with aluminum sliding trays
29 1/8 in. (74 cm.) high, 14½ in. (37 cm.) wide, 19 5/8 in. (50 cm.) deep

来源

Large apartments, Unité d'Habitation Air France, Brazzaville.

展览

Paris, Galerie 54, Aménagements de l'Unité d'Habitation Air France Brazzaville par Charlotte Perriand et Jean Prouvé, November 2002 - March 2003.

拍品专文

J. Barsac, Charlotte Perriand, Paris, 2005, pp. 330-331.

This storage unit was designed to be used inside the 'Brazza' closets, and could be mounted with shoe racks.