Influence of “Mingei (Folk Crafts)” on the Creative Theories of Charlotte Perriand

Abstract

Abstract This paper aims to clarify the influence of “Mingei (Folk Crafts)” on the creative theories of French architect and interior designer Charlotte Perriand (1903–1999) and reconsider an aspect of modern architecture. First, in Section 2, this paper examines Perriand’s articles before her encounter with “Folk Crafts”. Section 3 traces her experience of “Folk Crafts” during her time in Japan, and finally, Sections 4 and 5 compare the thoughts of Yanagi and Perriand. Perriand integrated the ideas of Yanagi’s “Folk Crafts” from her interest in vernacular buildings, and this matured into a spatial theory of the “contact”. This hand‐based “contact” was not a rejection of machine‐driven civilization; rather it had the characteristic of universality as far as the sense of touch was based on the human physiological sense.

Keywords

• Charlotte Perriand
• Folk Crafts
• Muneyoshi Yanagi
• vernacular
• universal sense