Cassina and Le Corbusier: LC14 - the Multifunctional Stool That Revolutionised Design

Reissued by Cassina in 2010, the LC14 Tabouret Cabanon from Roquebrune-Cap-Martin is still a bestseller. This stool seems to conjure up the image of a crate of whisky that washed up on the rocks of the Côte d'Azur.

Designed in 1952 by Le Corbusier for the Cabanon, a refuge on the Côte d'Azur, this stool is an exception to his typical modernity.

The Cabanon measures 15 square metres and is conceived as a “machine à habiter”. It was designed in just 45 minutes. On the outside, it resembles a rustic hut, but the interior is rationally organised to express an ideal romantic retreat.

The furnishings are made of wood to be minimalist yet functional. There are beds, a table, stools, cupboards, a sink and a toilet. The central element of the Tabouret can rotate in three dimensions to become a stool, a small table or a container.

This object reflects the poetics of the objet trouvé, a concept dear to Le Corbusier in the last years of his career, which he used to emphasise the essentiality and adaptability of domestic spaces to one's own needs. From then on, design was never the same.