Pierre Jeanneret — c. 1955 · ACL-020
Designed for the Chandigarh project — the Punjab capital laid out by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret from 1951 — this low armchair is among the programme's most emblematic creations. It embodies Jeanneret's vocabulary: raw teak, hand-woven cane, and the A-shaped compass legs that became the signature of Chandigarh furniture — pared to essentials, rational and remarkably economical in means. The stencilled “U.T.” mark (Union Territory, the status Chandigarh acquired in November 1966) indicates an assignment to an administrative building; only institutional furniture was stamped this way. This furniture was the work of a collective studio, led by Jeanneret with young Indian architects — Eulie Chowdhury, Jeet Malhotra, Aditya Prakash; attribution to Jeanneret remains the convention of the catalogues. Caning and cushion replaced, as is customary on these recovered and restored pieces.