19 December 2014
Golden wedding anniversary of the alliance between the historic Italian brand and the great architect and designer of the 20th century. Cassina is celebrating with a series of traveling events, exhibitions and re-editions the agreement signed by Cesare Cassina and Le Corbusier in 1964 for the manufacture on license of his first four models of furniture, marking the beginning of the approach based on authentic reproduction that was to characterize the collection called I Maestri [“The Masters”]. Over the years, the designs of Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand have grown in number to twenty (along with variants) and have seen a search for ever more up-to-date technical means of bringing the original small-scale and handcrafted production onto an industrial scale. Among these, the characteristic curving of the tubular structure in chrome-plated steel through a process of bending rather than welding, the introduction of expanded polyurethane and then feather padding to make the cushions more comfortable and today the use of trivalent chrome instead of the toxic hexavalent compound in the manufacture of the metal frames. For the anniversary of the LC Collection the LC9 stool, in Cassina’s catalogue since 1973, has been produced with a rattan seat, just as it appeared for the first time in Charlotte Perriand’s apartment in Paris in 1927.