| Product type | Armchair |
| Dimensions |  (Dimensions in cm) |
| Colours | Leather Hide   Gestell   |
| Material | Frame: steel, chrome plated or matt lacquered black Seat and backrest: fur or cowhide Armrests: black cowhide |
| LC50 Anniversary | |
| Pflege | Fabric: dust and lint can be easily vacuumed. To treat stains, use a damp cloth and a mild, neutral detergent. Professional cleaning should be performed in the assembled state and with the use of upholstery foam or using a mobile washing-extraction device. Leather: Please maintain and clean the leather according to the booklet included. Steel: For removal of impurities from polished gloss, matt chrome plated and aluminium surfaces, you can use any glass cleaner with a clean, soft cloth and then wipe dry the surface with a soft cloth. Do not use solvents or abrasives. |
| Awards & museum | MoMA Collection, New York |
| Warranty | 24 months |
| Product family | Cassina iMaestri Collection |
| Product datasheet | Please click on picture for detailed information (ca. 0,4 MB). |
Each piece of furniture from the "Cassina i Maestri Collection" is authenticated by a stamp with the designer's signature and a unique identification number.
In September 2022 the LC1 armchair was renamed Fauteuil dossier basculant by Cassina.
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Cassina iMaestri collection in 2023, it was agreed with the heirs and foundations of Le Corbusier®️, Pierre Jeanneret®️ and Charlotte Perriand®️ to return to the objects original French names.The prefix "LC" has therefore be removed from the affected products, and now onlw the number is listed together with the product name (e.g. 1 Fauteuil dossier basculant).
The Le Corbusier armchair LC1, one of the undisputed design classics of the modern age and since 2022 back to its original name 1 Fauteuil dossier basculant, comes from a collection of avant-garde furniture developed by Le Corbusier in collaboration with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret and his colleague Charlotte Perriand. In addition to the armchair LC1 the collection also includes, amongst other objects, the chaise lounge LC4 - 4 Chaise longue à reglage continu - and the LC2 sofa - 2 Fauteuil Grand Confort, petit modèle, deux places. Although Le Corbusier developed the first version of the LC1 in 1928 for his Villa Church project, the year of publication is generally given as 1929: principally because in this year the LC1 armchair was presented along with the other representatives of the collection at the Paris Salon d'Automne. What distinguished the chair from its contemporaries, and continues to define the Cassina armchair today, is its strict, minimalist, reduction to elementary geometric shapes and the rejection of all superfluous ornamentation. Despite the formal minimalist design the LC1 armchair guarantees maximum comfort. This is principally ensured by sophisticated details such as the movable backrest, or the stabilizing steel springs behind the seat and backrest. In addition, the unique quality of the materials employed and the sophisticated production by Cassina ensure that your personal LC1 will provide comfort and security a lifetime long.
The world-famous designer Le Corbusier
Although Le Corbusier was not solely responsible for the development of the LC1 armchair, he is often cited as the sole author. This is mainly because with his work the Swiss architect was unquestionably one of the most important protagonists in the development of modernity and thus played a central role in helping shape contemporary design. Originally born under the name of Charles Édouard Jeanneret-Gris in 1887, Le Corbusier was active in various fields - from painting across architecture and urban planning and onto furniture designs. Following completion of his architectural studies le Corbusier undertook numerous study trips throughout Europe, in the course of which he formulated his radical, purist mindset: ideas which would later have a decisive influence on contemporary architecture and which remain as controversial today as then. In addition to prominent buildings as the "Unité d'Habitation" in France and Berlin or the chapel in Ronchamps, Le Corbusier realised numerous works in the United States and India. In addition to the armchair LC1 the chaise longue LC4 belongs to the most famous Le Corbusier furniture designs.
The LC1 armchair is produced by Cassina
The Cassina LC 1 armchair
As with all objects in the iMaestri Collection the LC1 armchair is produced by the Italian manufacturer Cassina according to Le Corbusier's original specifications. The chair is produced with a base in steel, available as either a chrome or a black matt lacquered version. The seat and backrest are in turn realised from fur or leather. As a manufacturer Cassina has specialized for decades in the processing of high quality materials, such as wood and leather; and here the furniture manufacturer can rely on traditional craftsmanship, combined with technological innovation and computer technology. Thus all animal skins are checked first by hand and marked for deficiencies before being perfectly cut using scans and a special software. Every LC1 is in addition subjected to very strict controls - Cassina monitors the entire production process using bar codes, each piece being assigned its own unique, individual code.
The designers Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand
Clear lines, functional design - what is familiar to us today, meant in the 1920s a stark break with conventional ideas and stood for a radical change in understanding of aesthetics and domesticity. Le Corbusier made an important contribution to this development and with the LC1 armchair and the other objects in his LC1 Collection helped revolutionise ideas about furniture design. Le Corbusier and his colleagues deliberately designed the entire collection as an alternative to Art Deco: instead of organic lines and elaborate flourishes, the LC1 armchair and the other designs in the collection are characterised by Le Corbusier's ideas on purism, clarity, logic and functional reduction. Also with respect to the materials and manufacturing the designers were oriented on the possibilities of industrialization. This divide between nature and machine world can be seen in the contrast between the cool steel and the organic leather of the Cassina LC1 armchair.
Cassina, manufacturer of the Le Corbusier LC1, can look back on a history just as long as that of the Le Corbusier armchair. Founded in 1927, so two years before Le Corbusier formally released his LC1 at the Paris Salon d'Automne, the Milanese company was initially known for its realisation of cruise ship interiors: a tradition continued today albeit in form of creating interiors for luxury hotels and boutiques rather than ocean going palaces. From the 1950s Cassina started to move ever more into the field of furniture design and combined traditional crafts with the new possibilities of mass production to develop and distribute visionary designs by contemporary designers. From the mid-60s Cassina began producing original furniture objects by Le Corbusier; objects such as the LC2 sofa, the chaise longue LC4 and the LC1 armchair. In addition to such established classics the Cassina division I Contemporanei places an emphasis on contemporary furniture design and works closely with renowned international designers such as Konstantin Grcic or Mario Bellini.
...1027 Frescos not by Eileen Gray nor by Jean Badovici but by Le Corbusier... A film in which Eileen Gray, Jean Badovici and Le Corbusier exist in dialogue with one another, directly and indirectly, on architecture, design, space, the human condition, dialogues that while following and engaging with it is important to remember that in E...
...Le Corbusier is regularly discussed and presented it does contain an awful lot of very infrequently discussed and presented projects, including numerous that are not only as informative and instructive as the regularly presented projects but which offer alternative insights into the person, architect and designer Le Corbusier... Projects such as Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret's 1929-1932 penthouse villa for that leading figure of the haute bohème of early 20th century Paris, Carlos de Beistegui; a penthouse project developed on a rooftop high above the Champs-Élysées; a penthouse that was both indoor and outdoor spaces; a penthouse that as the exhibition's title implies was conceived as a machine à amuser rather than a machine à habiter, a machine for amusement not a machine for living, a machine for parties and hospitality, not a machine for the mundane banality of everyday existence...
..."Customs turn into habits, some modest, some all-powerful", opined Le Corbusier in 1950, a reference to that inexplicable way humans have of passing through life blithely accepting all that has come before, accepting all that existed when they were born, as fixed and immutable and unchallengeable; an acceptance of the familiar, the existing, as fixed and immutable and unchallengeable that, for Le Corbusier, represented a major hindrance to the "free play of the mind"... However, Le Corbusier continues, "a simple decision can sweep away the obstacle, clearing the path for life"...
..."The Modulor — Measure and Proportion" at Pavillon Le Corbusier, Zürich, Switzerland Although first published in 1950 Le Corbusier's Le Modulor, his scale of proportions based on the Golden Ratio developed as a basis for, as a tool for, designing buildings and their interiors responsive to and meaningful for humans, was the result of not only a great many years research and consideration by Le Corbusier, research that saw numerous changes to the basic, idealised, human body from which everything else is and was abstracted, but also arose from positions to proportions and dimensions that Le Corbusier had developed in the earliest days of his career in his native La Chaux-de-Fonds... A journey to Le Modulor that the Pavillon Le Corbusier, Zürich, aim to sketch and elucidate in their 2023 exhibtion The Modulor — Measure and Proportion via a presentation of, and amongst others exhibits: natural objects, including seashells and plants in which the Golden Ratio can be measured; of historical proposals for a scale of human proportions, that chain in which Le Modulor is a link; and also a documentation of Le Corbusier's research and considerations, the workings that led to the 1950 publication...
...One could be forgiven for thinking that little would be as pointless as a Le Corbusier colouring-in book... So singularly achromatic is the popular understanding of Le Corbusier, a lack of colour reinforced by the dour, austere, round bespectacled, persona which so universally defines Le Corbusier: what, one asks oneself, could there possibly be to colour in a Le Corbusier colouring-in book?...
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