1896 – 1967

Pierre Jeanneret, arrived in Paris in 1921 where he soon became the closest collaborator of his cousin Le Corbusier. These architects, inventors of the modernist movement, were responsible for some famous creations, including the Villa Roche (1923) and the Villa Savoye (1929); the Swiss Pavilion at the Cité Universitaire in Paris (1931); the Cité Refuge in Paris (1932); a vast Urban Plan for Algiers, and the incredible futuristic project for Paris known as the “Plan Voisin de Paris” (1925); the urban  plan for the city of Chandigarh, India together with the construction of the government buildings and residential districts. 

Pierre Jeanneret joined the UAM (Union des Artistes Modernes) in 1930 and never stopped defending the modernist doctrine until his death in 1967, which he applied as much in the prefabricated pavilions developed with Charlotte Perriand and Jean Prouvé at the end of the 1930s as during the war, as in the hundreds of public buildings and houses he built in India in the latter part of his life (1951-1967). Pierre Jeanneret is also famous in furniture, starting with the line of modern furniture intended for the “equipment of the home”, which he presented at the Salon d’Automne in 1929 with Le Corbusier and Charlotte Perriand (who joined the workshop in 1928), and which made a big splash, acquiring a celebrity that has never been denied (Basculant chair No. 301, chaise longue B306, club chair Grand Confort LC2, not to mention the swivel chair and stool made of tubular steel.

Pierre Jeanneret was responsible for much of Chandigarh's large civic architecture project. His most remarkable contribution has undoubtedly been the designing of the fourteen categories of mass-housings that constitute the living and amenity areas of Chandigarh. Jeanneret, along with Ar. Jugal Kishore Chowdhary, Ar. Bhanu Pratap Mathur and Er. Agya Ram, was responsible for a significant amount of designing for the Panjab University, including the Gandhi Bhawan and the University Library.

Jeanneret stayed on in Chandigarh after its construction, advising the local government in his appointed capacity as Chief Architect of the city.