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8 December 2014

Bibliotheque pour la maison Mexique

by Charlotte Perriand

Year: 1952

Together with Jean Prouve and Sonia Delaunay, Charlotte Perriand designed the Bibliotheque, a bookshelf for the Maison Mexique. The French goverment invisted Mexico, in the twenties, to invent a building for the Cite Internationale Universitaire de Paris, in which the Mexican universitairy studants could be housed.

 

Maison de Mexique exists out of 90 rooms. Jean Prouve and Charlotte Perriand were commissioned to provide the furniture for the rooms and public places inside the Maison. Perriand designed new variations of the bookshelf years later such as: Wall model Bibliotheque Murale and Bibliotheque Tunisie, which included a build-in bench for the house that represents Tunesia on the Cite Internationale Universitaire.

 

The bookshelf is meant as a roomdivider. The different colours of the shelfs are choosen deliberately, to create a certain rhythm. The use of iron in combination with wood is probably the influence of Prouve because, as a former smith, liked to work with iron.