Prefabricated Kitchen Unit, Les Tournavelles, Arc 1800, Savoie, France

Description

Like a readymade for construction, the idea of prefabrication has long fascinated architects and designers. The kitchen and bathroom became special focuses for study because of the many different materials and trades required to produce them. Charlotte Perriand’s prefabs at Les Arcs—molded fiberglass shells in unexpected red, green, and blue—represent one of the rare projects of this kind that achieved large-scale production, with thousands of units created over the course of a decade. Completed at the end of Perriand’s career, these units were the culmination of many years of work to make domestic spaces more usable, affordable, responsive to contemporary life, and especially at Les Arcs, enjoyable and fun.

Prefabricated Kitchen Unit, Les Tournavelles, Arc 1800, Savoie, France

Charlotte Perriand

1975–78

Accession Number

222486

Medium

Polyester and fiberglas shell with unoxidized steel

Dimensions

233 × 155 × 68 cm (92 × 61 × 27 in.)

Classification

design

Museum

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Credit Line

Funds provided by the Architecture & Design Society