LC16
This small wooden writing desk
was designed for the children’s rooms of the Unité d’Habitation in Nantes-Rezé,
a comune in the Loire Atlantique département. Le Corbusier’s interest in
promoting the harmonious arrangement of people’s individual and collective
lives led him to explore spaces and furniture in-depth, with constant reference
to the measurements of the human body calculated using his Modulor system. The
LC16 consists of a shelving unit and a work-surface, both of them in matte
natural-stain oak. The piece can be extended by adding fixed shelves to the
table feature.
About Designer | |
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Le Corbusier |
Chaux-de Fonds/Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, 1887/1965 Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier, was
born at La Chaux-de-Fonds, in the Swiss Jura, in 1887; he died in France, at
Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, on the French Côte d’Azur, in 1965. Early in his career his work met with some resistance
owing to its alleged «revolutionary» nature and the radical look it acquired
from its «purist» experiments; in time , however, it won the recognition it
deserved and it is still widely admired. His message is still being assimilated
by an ever increasing number of people in the profession, but his far-out
avant-garde attitudes should be interpreted with due consideration for the use
of rational systems in his planning method, evidenced by extremely simple
modules and formes based on the functional logic. «Functionalism tending not so much to an exaltation of
the mechanical function at the expense of the symbolic, as to the rejection of
symbol that he now considers outmoded and insignificant and the restoration of
the pratical function as a symbol of new values»(¹) In his activities as town-planner, architect and
designer, his method of research continued to develop, at times going to the
opposite extremes of a rich plastic idiom. Instances of this are: Unité d’Habitation, Marseille (1946-52); the Chapel at Ronchamp (1950-55); the Dominican Monastery «La Tourette» (1951-56); the Centre of Zurich (1964-65) the Hospital in Venice (1965). Much the same commitment will be found in the
furniture of the Equipement intérieur de l’habitation (tables, chairs,
armchairs, sofas) designed for the Salon d’Automne, 1928, with Pierre Jeanneret
and Charlotte Perriand and “Casiers Standard”, system of container units
designed for the Pavillon of the Esprit Nouveau, 1925, with Pierre Jeanneret.
Cassina re-proposes this furniture
considered “up-to-date”; its clear and essential “form” is highly adaptable to
change in time and in environment, constantly providing new significance. |