Vintage 1945 Le Corbusier Paris

Charles-Edouard Jeanneret arrived in Paris in 1917. Three years later, he assumed the nom d’artiste “Le Corbusier.” His timing was propitious; Paris was becoming the global center of the cultural movement known as ‘Modernism’, and Le Corbusier’s painting and architecture alike embraced it, emphasizing elemental geometric forms — “space and light and order,” as he put it. 

 

Although he’s now celebrated along with Mies Van der Rohe or Walter Gropius as a pioneer of modern architecture, Le Corbusier applied his theories about shape to the decorative arts as well. In 1929, along with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand, Le Corbusier debuted Le Grand Confort at Paris’s Salon d’Automne. Among the pieces shown was his iconic furniture, constructed from a then-unique combination of steel, tanned leather and rawhide. 

 

Metal Dial 

The second limited-edition Girard-Perregaux timepiece in this series commemorates Le Corbusier’s contributions to the decorative arts by focusing on materials — pairing a steel case with a cowhide strap to evoke the Le Corbusier chaise longue. The hand-engraved dial reflects his Modulor system of architectural proportion, based on the male figure (human scale) and the “Golden Ratio,” as well as his applied perception of light.