Perriand and the Moon

One day before Paris fell to the Nazis, Charlotte Perriand boarded the Hakusan Maru on 15th June 1940. The journey, lasted 2 months and 6 days, that would take her to Japan, which according to Perriand, was “like the Moon”. With support from Junzo Sakakura, Perriand had been invited by the Japanese Ministry of Commerce and Industry to serve as an advisor to help increase furniture exports for Japan. Perriand had met Sakakura while they were both working for Le Corbusier’s between 1931-1936. 

grafitti on Hakusan Maru

When she arrived in Japan on August 21, 1940, she stayed at the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Imperial Hotel. Then she traveled throughout Japan with Sori Yanagi and visited folk arts crafts people around the county. With the advent of WWII in Japan, perriand tried to return to France but was not able to because of a naval blockade. between 1942-46 she lived in exile in vietnam. There, she studied local woodworking and weaving techniques.

Wright's imperial hotel (now demolished)

During her long stay in Asia, perriand reinterpretated Japanese culture to ‘echo’ both tradition and modernity. A long line of artists and architects that includes monet, Van gogh, utzon, eames, wright, George lucas, and bowie have looked to japan for artistic inspiration. Perriand was no exception. In 1941, after seven months of traveling through Japan, Perriand and Sakakura produced an exhibition held at the Takashimaya department stores in Tokyo and Kyoto. They called it “Tradition, Selection, Creation.” It showcased her findings, recommendations and a number of designs she created. 

Like utzon, perriand re-interpreted Asian design through the selection and use of materials. While utzon substituted corrugated metal for clay tile, and concrete posts and beams for wood to create Bagsvaerd church, perriand substituted traditional Asian materials like bamboo for steel tubes to reinterpret her lounge chair she designed with Corbusier and jeanneret. 

Chaise rendered in bamboo

explorations in wood furniture

When she saw 17th century shelving at Katsura imperial villa in Kyoto, she “noted some shelves arranged on the walls, in the form of a cloud. This is where my cloud shape bookshelves came from, with aluminium connecting elements. A free form that gives rhythm to space and enhances the objects it supports. Starting from these elements, I could freely create entire walls or reduced combinations, or even furniture.” Her Japanese inspired shelving compositions go from sideboards and cupboards to bookshelves, with ground support or hung following symmetrical and asymmetrical plans, or even free-standing bookcases capable of structuring the architecture of a space. The components are the wooden oak shelves and anodized black aluminum vertical elements. Five different heights were studied in order to best organize various formats of objects and books. Each composition can be embellished with accessories such as aluminum trays and black, red and yellow plastic sliding trays which are functional and removable. The sliding panels of the bookcases can be customized in anodized aluminum, or in red, blue, green, yellow, grey, black and white. 

Katsura shelving

Sometimes, perriand, would look at non-architectural traditions and derive inspiration. in japan it is custom when receiving formal guests to serve them dinner in black lacquer trays. After they are used, they’re stacked. From this observation, perriand created individual tables black stamped out of a single sheet of anodized sheet aluminum. Her observations of stacking dinner boxes led her to devise stackable tables.

stacking lacquer tables

                               

Other times, perriand looked into performance like Bunraku puppet theater for ideas. In bunraku, the black attire of puppeteers renders them nonexistent. For her seating furniture around a dining table, perriand had the bent painted plywood chairs rendered in black to recede. She ‘echoed’ theater arts, and found ways to analogize furniture with theater characters. 

Bunraku puppet theater

Decades later, in 1993 at the request of her friend and ikebana master Hiroshi Teshigahara, perriand was commissioned to design a tea house for the UNESCO Japanese Cultural Festival. For this project, she frequently cited “The Book of Tea” by Kakuzo Okakura, which she had first discovered in 1930. The Book of Tea is a fascinating essay that touches upon tea, philosophy, history, and architecture. Tomorrow’s post will continue with Perriand’s tea pavilion design and the Book of Tea’s influence on Perriand. Click here to read Book of Tea.