Charlotte Perriand. Free to Rethink the World — Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, 9 October 2026 – 28 February 2027
Photo: Robertgombos, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 The Fundació Joan Miró sits on Montjuïc in a building designed by Josep Lluís Sert, a close friend of the painter, during what was then still the Franco regime era. In 1976, at Sert’s invitation, Charlotte Perriand came to Barcelona for the inauguration; a photograph from that day shows her at the opening of the startlingly modern building high on the hills above the city. Fifty years later the same building gives her the first major exhibition in Spain dedicated to her work. Charlotte Perriand. Free to Rethink the World runs from 9 October 2026 to 28 February 2027.
Perriand (1903–1999) was an architect, designer and photographer, long known mainly for her collaborations with Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret. The Barcelona show, curated by Martina Millà, head of exhibitions at the Fundació, spans her early formative years up to 1955, with a particular focus on her exhibition designs as spaces for experimentation with new ways of living. Among the most representative works are Bar sous le toit (1927), Salle à manger 28 (1928) and a reconstruction of Équipement intérieur d’une habitation (1929), conceived with Le Corbusier and Jeanneret and reproduced by Cassina. A mediation space at the end of the route lets visitors walk into that reconstruction, one of the manifestos of the Modern Movement.
The Barcelona presentation also tells a story the other venues cannot: Perriand and Sert met in 1928 at Le Corbusier’s studio and maintained a close friendship and a constant intellectual exchange for decades, and that relationship runs through both the exhibition and the catalogue. The publication gathers essays by international specialists and texts by Perriand herself, including the first chapter of her autobiography.
The exhibition is organised by the Fundació Joan Miró in collaboration with the Kunstmuseen Krefeld and the Museum der Moderne Salzburg, with the main sponsorship of the BBVA Foundation and the support of Louis Vuitton and Cassina. It is part of Barcelona’s programme as World Capital of Architecture.
Practical details
- Dates: 9 October 2026 – 28 February 2027
- Where: Fundació Joan Miró, Parc de Montjuïc, s/n, 08038 Barcelona, Spain
- Curator: Martina Millà
- Opening hours and tickets: fmirobcn.org
Cultural Heritage Online lists this exhibition because a 1975 building that is itself a landmark of modern architecture is hosting the designer who stood in it on its opening day, and because the furniture on show is the heritage of twentieth-century domestic life.
Sources
- METALOCUS, “Charlotte Perriand. The freedom to rethink the world” at the Fundació Joan Miró, metalocus.es — read 3 November 2026 (dates, curator, scope of the show, works on display, the Perriand–Sert friendship, partners and sponsors, address).
- FAD Magazine, Hannah Hayes-Westall, “A blueprint for protecting progressive ideas in difficult times: Charlotte Perriand at the Fundació Joan Miró”, 26 October 2026 — read 3 November 2026 (Sert as architect of the building, Perriand at the 1976 opening).
- Fundació Joan Miró, press office, fmirobcn.org/en/foundation/press/ — read 3 November 2026 (contact). The Fundació’s own exhibition page could not be read by our tools on that date.
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