In 1952, the Indian government asked Le Corbusier to imagine a brand new city, Chandigarh, that should express “the faith in India’s future.”

His cousin, Pierre Jeanneret, helped by Indian architects, had to supervise the realisation of the administration buildings. He realised himself a hudge part of the city, like the campus university and its famous librairy called Gandhi Bhawan.

To furnish these buildings, Pierre Jeanneret imagined a dedicated furniture, adapted to the new city and its residents. The mixing of his modern ideas and the local handcraft created simple and understated furniture with a solid and elementary construction.

Made out by the Indian labours with the local materials, these pieces are mostly in natural or tinted teak, with X, U or V shapes.

From 13 until 23 March 2014, LAFFANOUR - Galerie Downtown / Paris brings India to TEFAF Maastricht with an unseen exhibition of this exceptional furniture in a setting that recreates the architecture of the Indian administration buldings built by Le Corbusier.

Since 1975, TEFAF Maastricht gathers the most important galerists, architects, designers, interiors designers and art connoisseurs from all over the world. Excellence, Expertise and Elegance are the core values of this leading international art fair.

ABOUT LAFFANOUR - GALERIE DOWNTOWN / PARIS

LAFFANOUR - Galerie Downtown / Paris exhibits architects’ furniture designs, which are now recognized as real collectors’ items.
For the gallery, this furniture is the product of a debate on the nature of modernity: the attempt to find a balance between the technical and that which is driven by questions of lifestyle - the end goal being to promote something that will be of use to society as a whole.
The designs in question stand out for their intellectual rigor, commitment to social change and enthusiasm - we might even say radicalism - possessed as they were of sufficient vision and courage to strike out on new paths.
The place of these items of furniture in the history of 20th century art must be seen through the spectrum of this period’s many social upheavals.
An uncompromising approach to aesthetics is very much the hallmark of LAFFANOUR - Galerie Downtown / Paris, as is vividly illustrated by its spectacular displays in art fairs, its painstaking restoration work and its gallery exhibitions.
Exhibitions at the rue de Seine gallery never fail to offer an opportunity to discover the original and the remarkable - testament to the unequalled expertise of LAFFANOUR - Galerie Downtown / Paris. They also invest the collections of furniture and extremely rare pieces on display with a sense of grandeur that goes well beyond their basic function.
LAFFANOUR - Galerie Downtown / Paris is the major exhibitor of Charlotte Perriand’s work, but it has also helped bring Jean Prouvé’s designs to a wider audience. The gallery also features work by designers from the immediate post-1950s period right up to the present-day who are interested in similar creative challenges, such as Ettore Sottsass, Ron Arad and Gaetano Pesce.