Timeline
1903 Born in Paris, France.
1920 Enrolls at the Ecole de l’Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs to study furniture design.
1926 Marries her first husband, Percy Kilner Scholefield, a year after graduation and converts their attic apartment into a ‘machine age’ interior.
1927 Was interviewed by Le Corbusier on an October afternoon. After a brief glance at her drawings she was rejected and Le Corbusier bid her farewell with the dry comment "We don't embroider cushions here." She left her card with him regardless, and later that year invited Le Corbusier to see her installation at the Bar sous le Toit filled with tubular steel furniture at the Salon d'Automne, resulting in an invitation by Le Corbusier to join his studio at 35, rue de Sèvres to design furniture and interiors.
1928 Designs three chairs with Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret (the LC2 Grand Confort armchair, the B301 reclining chair and the B306 chaise longue) for the studio’s architectural projects.
1929 Creates a model modern apartment in glass and tubular steel to be exhibited as Equipment d’Habitation (Living Equipment) at the Salon d’Automne.
1930 Separates from her husband and moves to Montparnasse. Travels to Moscow for a Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM) conference and designs fixtures for the Pavilion Suisse at the Cité Universitaire in Paris.
1932 Starts work on the Salvation Army headquarters project in Paris.
1933 Travels to Moscow and Athens to participate in CIAM conferences.
1934 Designs the furniture and interior fixtures for Le Corbusier’s new apartment on rue Nungesser-et-Coli.
1937 Leaves Le Corbusier’s studio to collaborate with the artist Fernand Léger on a pavilion for the 1937 Paris Exhibition and to work on a ski resort in Savoie.
1939 When World War II begins, she leaves Savoie to return to Paris and to design prefabricated buildings with Jean Prouvé and Pierre Jeanneret.
1940 Sails for Japan where she has been appointed as an advisor on industrial design to the Ministry of Trade and Industry.
1942 Forced to leave Japan as an “undesirable alien” but is trapped by the naval blockade and spends the rest of the war in Vietnam, where she marries her second husband, Jacques Martin, and gives birth to a daughter, Pernette.
1946 Returns to France and revives her career as an independent designer and her collaboration with Jean Prouvé.
1947 Works with Fernand Léger on the design of Hôpital Saint-Lo.
1950 Designs a prototype kitchen for Le Corbusier’s Unité d'Habitation apartment building in Marseille.
1951 Organises the French section of the Triennale di Milano.
1953 Collaborates on design of the Hotel de France in Conakry, Guinea
1957 Designs the League of Nations building for the United Nations in Geneva.
1959 Works with Le Corbusier and the Brazilian architect Lucio Costa on the interior of their Maison du Brésil at the Cité Universitaire in Paris.
1960 Collaborates with Ernő Goldfinger on the design of the French Tourist Office on London’s Piccadilly.
1962 Begins a long-running project to design a series of ski resorts in Savoie.
1985 Retrospective of her work at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.
1998 Publication of her autobiography, Une Vie de Création, and presentation of a retrospective at the Design Museum in London.
1999 Charlotte Perriand dies in Paris.
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