Charlotte Perriand, who graduated from the Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs in 1924, became known at the Salon d’Automne in 1927 and 1929 when she exhibited respectively Bar under the Roof and Equipment for Habitation. Connected to the Avant-Garde movements of the 1930s, a founder member of the Union des Artistes, connected also to Fernand Léger and more so to Jean Prouvé from 1939, Charlotte Perriand was with Le Corbusier the precursor of interior design.
If the collaboration over about ten years with Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret made her famous, it was especially due to furniture signed by all three that was both modernist and innovative, using materials such as chrome steel. Charlotte Perriand honed her approach to the visual object, the art of inhabiting and equipping a home during trips to Brazil, Indochina and especially to Japan. She was invited there by contract in 1940, through the architect Junzo Sakakura, as advisor on industrial art to the Imperial Ministry of commerce and Industry. This time spent in Japan reinforced her desire to bring together tradition and modernity.