Charlotte Perriand

Perriand was the furniture brain of Le Corbusier's studio from 1927: the LC4 chaise longue, the swivel chair and the Grand Confort armchairs long credited to him alone were designed with her and his cousin Pierre Jeanneret. Later, in Japan and the French Alps, she turned to wood and storage, and her modular shelving with coloured sliding panels and her compact kitchens for the ski resort of Les Arcs are still models for small homes. Her free-form tables and simple straw-seated chairs show a designer thinking about how people actually live.