Furnishings That Know
How to Converse

Anthony Vaccarello, creative director of Saint Laurent, curates a refined and thoughtfully composed presentation of Charlotte Perriand’s work, capturing the essence of her rationalist vision through four previously unseen furniture pieces designed between 1934 and 1967. These designs, which once only existed as conceptual sketches or prototypes, have been brought to life for the first time, marking a sensitive and profound act of rediscovery. The initiative underscores Saint Laurent’s ongoing commitment to honoring visionary female figures in design, retrieving Perriand’s forgotten creations and restoring them as cultural landmarks of lasting significance.

Charlotte Perriand (1903–1999) remains a seminal presence in 20th-century design and architecture. Her approach fused the intellectual clarity of modernism with a deeply humanistic understanding of space, aesthetics, and social transformation. The collection has been recreated by Saint Laurent with meticulous fidelity, rendered in life-size, limited editions. Yves Saint Laurent himself was a devoted admirer and lifelong collector of Perriand’s work.

Among the key pieces: the Banquette de l’Ambassadeur du Japon (1967), a monumental five-seat sofa originally conceived for the Japanese Embassy in Paris. Its seven-meter-long base curves gently at both ends, creating the illusion of suspension in space. Brazilian rosewood and woven cane—hallmarks of Perriand’s sensitive material palette—emphasize the subtle tension between elegance and function.

The Bibliothèque Rio de Janeiro (1962), crafted in rosewood with cane-paneled sliding doors, was designed for the Brazilian home of Jacques Martin, Perriand’s second husband. The transparency and texture of the doors echo the shading screens of traditional South American architecture. The Table Mille-Feuilles (1963) is a circular table made of ten alternating layers of light and dark wood, its surface sculpted into concentric rings—a design both visually hypnotic and technically complex, now finally realized in full scale.

The Fauteuil Visiteur Indochine (1943), imagined during Perriand’s time in Vietnam, also re-emerges from history. The original of this elegant chair was lost and only a single sketch was left behind. Today, it has been reconstructed using metal tubing, rosewood, and a traditional Thai cushion—honoring the blend of craftsmanship and cultural sensitivity that defined the French designer’s later work.

In 1940, Perriand relocated to Japan as an official advisor to the government. With the outbreak of war, she took refuge in Vietnam, where she absorbed local craft traditions that would later become integral to her aesthetic language. Upon returning to France, she brought with her a design sensibility that remained modernist in spirit but rooted in the warmth and tactility of natural materials. This body of work offers a privileged lens on a philosophy in which each object is a reflection of how we live. These pieces do more than furnish a space—they articulate a worldview, embodying Perriand’s enduring belief that design, at its most essential, is “an expression of life.”

Exhibition, installation, performance, theater, immersion, furniture. Keywords that fall short—especially for those obsessed with brevity—in capturing the mise-en-scène crafted by Cassina in collaboration with Formafantasma.

Staging Modernity is a performative composition that reflects on the 60-year legacy of the Le Corbusier Collection by the iconic and forward-thinking Italian brand. Originally launched in 1965 in collaboration with Charlotte Perriand and Pierre Jeanneret, the collection remains a cornerstone of modern design, here reinterpreted through an experiential, poetic lens.

This is a collection conceived as a duet—on one side the architectural force and plasticity of Oscar Niemeyer, Brazilian architect and visionary; on the other, the quiet, artisanal elegance of industrial designer, Claudia Moreira Salles.

Niemeyer is the point of origin. His gestures—fluid, continuous, unmistakable—trace a line through the history of modern architecture. At the center lies the rediscovery of thirteen Italian projects conceived by Niemeyer, a journey through built and unbuilt visions, from the realized Mondadori Headquarters in Segrate (1970), to unexecuted marvels such as the FATA Congress Center (1976), the Burgo Tower in San Mauro Torinese (1978), hovering like a spaceship, and a proposed replacement for the Teatro Verdi in Veneto.

Oscar Niemeyer, exiled in Paris during Brazil’s military dictatorship, found in Europe a new expressive terrain. It was there, in 1972, that he designed the Poltrona Alta, in steel and leather, for the French Communist Party headquarters—a chair that is as much a political declaration as it is a design object. Other highlights include the Chaise Longue Rio; the Marchesa Bench, inspired by Japanese minimalism; and furnishings for the Palácio da Alvorada and Palácio do Planalto in Brasília. This last city, of course, is the very image of utopia realized—Brasília, conceived from nothing and built in just five years, stands as perhaps Niemeyer’s most powerful monument to the belief that architecture can shape society. It is an act of faith in space, in progress, and in collective destiny.

For over fifteen years, ETEL has been the custodian and producer of Niemeyer’s furniture, upholding artisanal methods that resist mass production and honor the integrity of each piece. This approach—meticulous, faithful, human—is what gives the works their living soul.

In this landscape of formal expression, the voice of Claudia Moreira Salles enters not in opposition, but in resonance. A master of wood and matter, her works—such as the Banco Moiré (2005), the Pétala Lamp (1998), or the Tríptico Tables—emerge from a meditative process where geometry meets vulnerability, and the human hand remains ever-present. Her pieces do not challenge Niemeyer’s; they converse with them. An invisible thread runs between the two, woven from tension and release, presence and void. Both designers shape silence, even when working with metal and stone. Both recognize form as an expression of thought.