French designer Charlotte Perriand (1903-1999) is one of the most important names in European twentieth-century industrial design. A key innovator in socially conscious furniture for the modern masses, Perriand left her mark through large-scale urban projects in major cities across Europe and beyond. Amongst her most significant contributions in this regard was the 1952 design for the interior and furnishings of the Maison du Mexique at the Cité Universitaire, Paris, a building erected to house Mexican university students in the French capital, from which the present bookcase derives.

One of several now-iconic projects executed by Perriand in collaboration with the Ateliers Jean Prouvé, the commission for the Maison du Mexique involved the furnishing of seventy-seven dormitories. For this, Perriand faced the challenge of working according to a pre-determined layout for the rooms provided by the building’s architects Jorge and Roberto Medellín, which involved an open-plan space without divisions between the bedroom, bathroom and study area. A desire to introduce spatial partitions within each dormitory without visibly minimising its volume produced the present design: a semi-architectural structure, positioned between the bedroom and bathroom, with built-in storage compartments scaled to fit the student’s study equipment on one side, and toiletries on the other.

With its playful alternations between open and closed space, metal and wood, neutral and bold colours, the present bookcase is a characteristic product of Perriand’s partnership with the Jean Prouvé workshops, which broke new ground in industrial design in the 1950s. Combining sturdy storage boxes in Prouvé’s pioneering folded sheet metal technique with six horizontal wooden shelves, the bookcase, like its sister design for the dormitories of the adjacent Maison de la Tunisie, was designed for longevity, its hardwearing construction capable of enduring the constant use necessitated by its context.

The seventy-seven bookcases were installed at the Maison du Mexique from late 1952, assembled on-site from flat-pack metal and wood components by carpenter André Chetaille, where they remained in use for several generations. Today, almost three-quarters of a century later, the Cité Universitaire bookcases are highly prized, aptly described by Charlotte Perriand expert Jacques Barsac as a ‘cult piece of design furniture.’