Pioneering female designers finally take centre stage

Architect Charlotte Perriand lays on the «LC4 Chaise longue», that she designed. Le Corbusier's name however also appears on the patent. VG Bild-Kunst. Bonn 2021, Le Corbusier: F.L.C./ VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2021

In the art world women have often struggled for space and recognition, and historically male-dominated design is no exception. But hurdles and mistrust didn’t stop women from putting their ideas on paper. Some of their designs gained worldwide fame. Their names, however, often didn’t. The Vitra Design Museum wanted to redress the imbalance in an exhibition.

Stop calling it Le Corbusier’s “chaise longue”! The iconic leather and steel recliner has long been associated with the Swiss-born architect, Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier. But it was actually designed by 24-year-old Charlotte Perriand, who had just graduated from the School of the Central Union of Decorative Arts.

Iconic chairs, eclipsed female designer

Paris-born Perriand worked at Le Corbusier’s studio between 1927 and 1937. Considered too modern for its time, her recliner wasn’t a commercial success at first. It only gained worldwide interest in the early 1960s, when Le Corbusier decided to adapt its design, putting only his name on the newly rebaptised LC4. On the original B306 chaise longue patent, however, Perriand’s name is accompanied by those of both Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, his cousin.

Designed by a wife-husband team: the chair by Ray and Charles Eames. Here Ray Eames working on a model, 1950. Eames Office LLC

Another female designer behind a notable chair is Ray Eames, who worked with her husband on the iconic Eames furniture pieces such as the lounge chair and the shell chair. Like those of many of her contemporaries, Ray’s contributions were generally overlooked and her talent only fully recognised posthumously. The Vitra museum renamed a street on its campus after her to honour what would have been her 100th anniversary in 2012.

Pioneers at the turn of the century

Some women did have notable careers, like Cuban designer Clara Porset and Eileen Gray from Ireland, the first woman to attend the prestigious Slade School of Fine Art in London in 1900. “And yet books about the history of design often fail to mention them,” writes Viviane Stappmanns, curator of the exhibition at the Vitra Design MuseumExternal link in Weil am Rhein, near Basel, which is currently showcasing women in design from 1900 to today.

Clara Porset with a table model, circa 1952 and the “Butaque” chair she designed, 1948. Elizabeth Timberman. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution / Vitra Design Museum, Foto: Jürgen Hans

There have been several initiatives to showcase female designs and rectify the historical lack of credit given to women. In 2021 British architect and author Jane Hall published Woman Made: Great Women Designers. The book features over 200 designers from more than 50 countries, retracing the impact of female product designers.

Similarly, the Stewart Program for Modern Design, in collaboration with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, is launching a website, Designed by Women, which aims to bring greater visibility to female designers worldwide. The site will eventually include a searchable database and several video interviews with contemporary designers.

Dressing cabinet for Tempe a Pailla, 1932-1934. Portrait of Eileen Gray, 1927. Vitra Design Museum, Foto: Jürgen Hans / National Museum of Ireland

Unflattering spotlight

Not all women worked in the shadows: some female designers came under the spotlight, including ten women hired by General Motors in the mid-1950s. But all that glitters isn’t gold: despite the exceptional opportunity these women were offered, their engagement seemed to be more of a marketing move than a true recognition of their talent.

The General Motors’ “Damsels of Design”, photographed around 1955. Courtesy General Motors Design Archive & Special Collections

The women were hired to make cars more appealing to female clientele in a post-war America booming with capitalism. Their design skills were commonly disregarded by their male counterparts and their tasks clearly limited, as they later said in interviews.

Meanwhile in Switzerland, where women couldn’t vote at a national level until 1971, over a hundred national and cantonal women’s organisations joined forces to create the Swiss Exhibition for Women’s Work (SAFFA) in 1958. Organised and designed exclusively by women, the exhibition was a great success and particularly remembered for its architectural achievements. A permanent artificial island was built for the occasion on Lake Zurich.

Poster for the Swiss women’s work exhibition by Nelly Rudin, SAFFA, Zurich, 1958. Right: Swiss Architect Flora Steiger-Crawford designed this stackable cantilever chair for the Zett-Haus in Zurich, built between 1930 and 1932. Nelly Rudin Plakatsammlung Schule für Gestaltung Basel / Foto: Jürgen Hans / Vitra Design Museum

And today?

The situation has improved in some ways over time but not entirely. Ludovica Gianoni graduated from the Lausanne University of Art and Design (écal) in 2015 and then worked in Denmark and Italy before coming back to Switzerland.

“In my class there was a gender balance, but today design is such a vast sector that the 20 students all went in different directions,” she explains. “However, if I look at the designers who, in the meantime, opened their own atelier, they’re all men, except for a woman who set up one with her boyfriend.”

Advertisement for Liisi Beckmann’s “Karelia” armchair, 1969. The Danish designer’s iconic armchair can be representative of the striking plastic furniture that many Italian manufacturers produced in the 1960s. Courtesy Zanotta SpA – Italy

“The glass ceiling is noticeable in design, as in many other industries,” says Larissa Holaschke, a research associate in the design department at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). She still sees gender tendencies in design.

“The soft areas such as textiles or interiors contrast with the hard areas such as product design or interaction design. These divisions, which were already historically formed at the Bauhaus, are still noticeable today.”

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