Gesture and Design

Charlotte Perriand Writes about Japan

Abstract

This article investigates Charlotte Perriand’s relationship with writing, focusing on an analysis of the articles she published about Japanese architecture and design. The aim is to demonstrate how these writings influenced her research on the house of modern man. Through the lens of such concepts as “Westernism” and “Japonism”, the intention is to reveal how perceptual modalities have been an integral part of Perriand’s design process. Perriand’s writing is examined by considering the linguistic form and style, but also the connection between texts, iconography and layout of the articles she published primarily in the specialised magazines «L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui» and «Casabella». The analysis reveals that when the author adopted a phenomenological rather than a speculative approach, she encouraged an anti-dogmatic, pragmatic critical analysis of the stylistic features of the Modern Movement. In her writings, the topics related to construction and technology are always intentionally subordinated to such issues as society and the human being.