'A designer's designer': NY exhibit showcases Chareau

More than a decade before Philip Johnson designed his iconic Glass House, French designer and architect Pierre Chareau designed the Maison de Verre in 1932 in Paris. It featured one of the world's first glass-brick exterior walls - three stories high.

Chareau's work straddles industrial aesthetics and traditional fine craftsmanship, clean spare lines and playful 1920s whimsy. He made futuristic gadgets like folding staircases, a pivoting bidet and sliding walls. His furniture, with elegant woods and hand-wrought iron, was made for the few and the wealthy. Many pieces fold or have multiple uses, designed for small but chic Paris apartments.

It was a gemlike world soon to be violently dismantled with the start of World War II, and Chareau, despite moving to New York to flee the war, has remained little known in the United States.