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Pierre Jeanneret Chair

Once a piece of junk tossed onto the streets of India, it is now a sought-after vintage classic.

A writing chair built for the masses from the Pierre Jeanneret collection was originally created by his cousin Le Corbusier as part of the Chandigarh project.

Jeanneret wanted to employ a design technique on his writing chair that was in use in India and save on costs to ensure easy reproduction. Sold for a pittance as scrap material until antique dealers started to take a chance on them in the late '90s, it's hard to believe today the Chandigarh's writing chair is worth a tidy sum between $2,750 and $62,573.

The saying really is true; one man's trash is another man's treasure.

The minimalist chair is every interior designer's favourite, more than just a seat; this chair can elevate a room as its own piece of art. Whether simplistic or bold, the right chair can change the mood of the setting in which it sits.

Shop the authentic Pierre Jeanneret chairs collection online at Vinterior.

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About Pierre JeanneretFinding treasure in junk, where the Pierre Jeanneret Chair began its antique journey.

A genius of modernist architecture and design, Swiss-born Pierre Jeanneret, architect and furniture designer, collaborated with his cousin Le Corbusier for most of his life.

During the French resistance, the two went their separate ways until the 1950s and created the talked about trash writing chair.

When Swiss architect Pierre designed a solid teak wood and natural cane chair, his reason was straightforward: people need chairs.

The design was one of numerous by Jeanneret that would be produced for the masses in Chandigarh, India.

After World War II, Pierre was recruited by his cousin, the famed architect Le Corbusier to create furniture for a new Utopian city in India's Punjab province. India's first prime minister sought to construct a new, shining city, a master plan, capital complex to house half a million residents as symbolic freedom of India after the 1947 Partition split with Pakistan. The golden city was labelled "the nation's faith in the future," a metropolis built for wealth.

Jeanneret lived on location and presided over the project. The intriguing example of mid-century architectural vision paired with contemporary urban realities and improvisation has become a fading monument to modernism, but the once government standard writing chairs didn't go down with the city. Rather they converted into a pot of gold.

Back to the junk part.

The chairs were put to the test decades later when people started to opt for modern office furniture over Pierrres's chairs. The chairs began to sit in large mounds across the capital and sold off as firewood and scrap.

Decades later, in the late 90s, antique collectors took a risk and started buying them up by the dozens, that was until the Indian government got wind of their value and ended the collectors' dreams abruptly.

Since 2011, no furniture pieces have been allowed to leave India without permission from the Ministry of Culture.

Jeanneret's work imbues geometric forms of modernism with industrious lines and lightweight materials like cane and wood. His iconic furniture designs still remain a collector's item today.

Are you looking for a scarce piece from the Chandigarh collection? Uncover exclusive furniture designs from Jeanneret here at Vinterior.

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