Architect and designer, France Entries A–F 449 The work of Pierre Chareau is emblematic of the confluence of artistic and technological developments of high-modern architecture and design in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s. Endowed with talent, charisma, and good fortune, Chareau became an integral part of a group of progressive artists, designers, and their bourgeois patrons on the Left Bank. Although Chareau was an influential furniture designer, interior decorator, and architect of the period, his legacy hinges on his one architectural masterwork, the Maison de Verre (1932; House of Glass). Pierre Paul Constant Chareau began his design career at age 16 as a tracing draftsman for the Parisian office of a British furniture and interior design firm, Waring and Gillow. During this professional apprenticeship, Chareau also attended the École des Beaux-Arts from 1900 to 1908. Although he never received a formal degree, he studied a wide variety of artistic disciplines, including painting, mu...