Chaise Lounge Furniture

Quick history question! Can you name the most famous chair in history? There is actually no one answer to that question and it depends on who you ask. Some of the answers you might have thought of could be as follows:

• The famous 1970s chair from the All in the Family television series Archie Bunker always sat in (now sitting in the Smithsonian Museum)
• The Louis XIII
• The chair of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome
• The Chippendale chair

All of those and other answers are definitely famous, however, one of furniture’s most innovative pieces, making both style and social statements, is something that emerged from the 1920s modernist movement, the leather chaise lounge that was brought to us by the Swiss architect Le Corbusier.

Challenging Conventions

There are so many reproductions offered of this groundbreaking furniture piece, however, most that look toward purchasing one might not know that the leather chaise lounge is actually the bold statement of a very controversial architect. One immediate thing that you can’t miss though is the light tubular steel, sleek curvilinear style, round headrest and long cushion.

Le Corbusier was considered quite controversial in the time due to the fact that he challenged the conventional modes of urban planning and design. The leather chaise lounge that Le Corbusier produced is something that was meant to be an efficient, adaptable piece of furniture that could be mass produced while still demonstrating a strong commitment to art and beauty.

Throughout the years, there were critics that accused Le Corbusier of promoting lofty and authoritarian ideals. Meanwhile, his leather chaise lounge has now come to be regarded as a classic furniture piece of the 20^th century.

Although the leather chaise lounge was conceived by Corbusier to be the solution for the home furnishing “problem”, through creating a piece that was easy to move and assemble, has since become something associated with sophistication and glamour. The leather chaise lounge brings about many connotations socially that are somewhat more of a historian, rather than an interior design topic.

Whenever you relax by reclining on a leather chaise lounge, you’re going to be thinking of cigars and martinis, much more than you’d ever be thinking about social change.

Modern Man

Keeping the cigar in the conversation, masculinity is another element that was introduced into the chaise lounge style. Prior to the leather chaise lounge from Le Corbusier, the chaise lounge was something that had always been flowery and overstuffed, feminine and extremely ornate. The chaise lounge had been something that was much more appropriate for a fainting woman that was taken in by the vapors instead of the man that was more accustomed to sitting by the fireplace in a wingback chair.

Interesting enough though, it was actually a woman, Charlotte Perriand that had worked very close with Le Corbusier when he was working on his famous leather chaise lounge.