Eleven cult encounters that marked the 20th century

LC4 lounge chair

It is called LC4, like Le Corbusier, and is signed by the great architect, his cousin Pierre Jeanner and Charlotte Perriand. But it is to the latter that we owe the discovery of this lounge chair, which has become a design icon. In 1927, a young designer who had just joined the agency of the founder of modern architecture was entrusted with the mission of designing what Le Corbusier called a “leisure machine”. Then, after several experiments, he envisions this arched structure that can be bent according to the user’s wishes. The furniture follows the shape of the body, in a movement that is as elegant as it is ergonomic. The seat then reclines onto an H-shaped base inspired by an aviation catalog by Charlotte Perriand. A leather mattress cover covers the metal frame and springs for optimal comfort. Italian manufacturer Cassina has been producing the lounge chair since 1965, originally released by Thonet.

B3 chair

In the early 1920s, Marcel Breuer taught at the Bauhaus carpentry workshop founded in 1919 by Walter Gropius. The faith of the Weimar school. to create simple, beautiful and functional objects designed to furnish modern buildings, equally beautiful and functional. In 1925, the young architect and designer bought his first bicycle. He’s very interested in its metal frame, which “we bend like a pasta.” This then inspired the B3, the first chair made of folded steel tubes. But the seat is too revolutionary for plush armchairs made of wood and velvet. Only in 1950, the furniture publisher, Italian Dino Gavina, became interested in the chair. It was also renamed the Wassily Chair after painter Wassily Kandinsky, a member of the Bauhaus, a friend of Breuer’s, and an ardent supporter of this work.

Red and blue chair

Gerrit Rietveld started his career as a cabinet maker. The Dutch architect and designer thus develops this woodworking in his small furniture shop, for which he designs this chair, the result of his experiments in the search for geometry and purity. The first version in 1917 was initially monochrome. But Rietveld then joined the famous De Stijl movement, within which he met the artist Piet Mondrian. Inspired by pioneering paintings of abstraction, he then applied his primary color palette to the seat, with touches of yellow to mark the sections. The red and blue chair was born as a 3D version of Mondrian’s paintings. With its stacked bars and rigid seat, it is no less ergonomic. In keeping with De Stjil’s philosophy, Rietveld’s design rejects the idea of ​​comfort, inviting you to adopt a toned and “conscious” posture. The Rouge et Bleu armchair has been produced since 1973 by the Cassina manufacturer, with a beech frame, seat and back in lacquered plywood.

Bambola armchair

“Oh, oh, oh…” This “beautiful doll” was born in the early 1970s from the mind of the mischievous Mario Bellini. The B&B Italia publishing house was then in full development. He’s looking for talent to design furniture that highlights his revolutionary polyurethane foam filling process. Mario Bellini then designed this series of Bambole, seats with an organic, welcoming shape that seem to be cut from a single block and whose structure we cannot see. B&B founder Piero Ambrogio Busnelli will entrust the Bambole advertising campaign to a young photographer named Oliviero Toscani. The latter posed Andy Warhol’s half-naked muse on a chair. Scandal at the Milan fair. Good luck to Bambola! And there you go. B&B continues its production today using a sustainable approach with environmentally friendly materials such as recycled polyethylene.

The bistro chair

What would Paris be without its bistros, its terraces and… its bistro chairs? Certainly not the same city. The symbolic foundation of a certain French art of living appeared more or less at the same time as the first bistros, at the end of the 19th century. Today, two centuries-old companies perpetuate the precious know-how: Gatti House and Drucker House, founded in 1885. In their workshops, artisans, rattan makers, weavers process the rattan, which is first heated to form the back and legs. Then comes the cane and pattern selection stages. Café de Flore, Deux-Magots, Café Français, but also the big hotels… each establishment has its color code and its iconic model and requires the knowledge of these artistic specialties for customized equipment. In Paris, elegance is cultivated all the way down to… chair legs.

A tufted sofa by Cini Boeri

In the 1950s, Cini Boeri was one of the few women to graduate from Milan’s famous Politecnica. He quickly applied his sense of innovation to the service of modular and modular design. It is in this spirit that the architect and designer conceived the Strips sofa for Arflex in 1968. The simple and rectangular lines of the model hide a small revolution. traditional sources. You can combine the modules with or without armchairs, and slide under the sofa cover that turns into a bed. Ease of use in line with emerging style for a more relaxed, modern and relaxed interior. The seating system, which has become a classic, won the prestigious Compasso d’oro award in 1979.

Le Lax chair

It was born in 1950, the year American publisher Herman Miller began producing the first molded fiberglass seats designed by Charles and Ray Eames. The American designer duo continues their work to make demanding, innovative, avant-garde design accessible to as many people as possible. The one-piece case contrasted with the lightness of the metal rod base is a small revolution in itself. It announced that six years later, the Lounge Chair modernized the traditional English club chair and became Eames’ unsurpassed bestseller. The casting system allows for industrial production, which limits costs. The iconic design duo will develop the system in various forms, such as the DSR Eiffel chair or the RAR rocking chair, to name a few.

Garden chair by Gae Aulenti

In the late 1960s, the Prisunic store chain (which merged with Monoprix in 1997) aimed to make design accessible to everyone. And offer, according to the slogan of its style and advertising director Denise Fayolle, “beauty at the cost of ugliness.” Italian Gae Aulenti is one of the famous designers such as Terence Conran or Olivier Mourg who participate in the adventure. The leading artist, who already designed the famous Pipistrello lamp, designs a series of garden furniture in tubular steel with a seat in pop and cheerful colors. Comfortable and versatile, the collection embodies the free spirit of the era. Ten years later, the architect, trained at the Polytechnic School of Milan, organized the conversion of the former Orsay station in Paris into a museum. “Design for all” in the Museum of Decorative Arts. From Prizunik to Monoprix, A French Adventure’ exhibition tells the story of these iconic collaborations until May 15, 2022.

Togo armchair

The Togo armchair is divisive, whether it’s pleasing or unpleasant at first glance. Behind the giant cushion seat, the star piece of the French house Ligne Roset marked a revolution in 1970s living rooms, as an invitation to laze in the middle of the house. The armchair was designed in 1973 by Michel Ducaro, a graduate of Beaux-Arts in Lyon. With Togo, the designer celebrated the same year at the Paris Art Manager’s Salon and was awarded the René-Gabriel Prize, which honors “innovative and democratic furniture”. And for good reason, it’s designed for bodies to land, rest there, and stay there. His silhouette is legendary. Ducaroy described it as “a tube of toothpaste that folds back on itself like a stovepipe and closes at both ends.” This November, this perfectly comfortable armchair sounds like a call to cocoon…

The Bowl Chair:

Long before the spade bowl was the Bowl chair. A chair born in 1951 from geometric play, as simple and playful as it is avant-garde. 12 years before Eero Aarnio’s famous Globe Chair, architect and designer Lina Bo Bardi designed a hemispherical seat. The sphere rests on a thin metal structure. And moves as needed. Born in Italy in 1914, settled in Sao Paulo in 1946, received the Brazilian nickname “Charlotte Periand”. Like Le Corbusier’s French counterpart, Lina Beau Bardy studied all fields of creativity, from design to architecture, including journalism, decoration and museology. Among her most famous works are Masp (Sao Paulo Art Museum), the incredible glass house where she lived with her husband, the Sesc Pompeia sports and cultural center.

Vermelia Armchair by Campana Brothers

Between art and design, poor materials and precious creativity, the Vermela armchair arises from the chaos of São Paulo and the creative spirit of the Campana brothers at the dawn of the 1990s: architect Fernando and lawyer Humberto in 1983 to invent a Brazilian design that combines the restored spirit of the favelas and the tropical metropolis. elegance. The first manifesto, the first shine with the exhibition of “Uncomfortable” seats. In 1993, the Italian house Edra decided to publish Vermelha. And accept the challenge. assemble and weave 500 meters of red rope onto the epoxy powder coated structure. An icon was born that propelled the Campana brothers into the international design arena.