Pierre Chapo was a French designer and craftsman celebrated for his modernist wooden furniture. Born in Paris in 1927, he studied architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts and was deeply influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright’s principles of harmony between form and material.
In 1958, Chapo founded Galerie Chapo in Paris with his wife, artist Nicole Lormier, exhibiting his own designs alongside those of contemporaries like Isamu Noguchi. His furniture combined architectural precision with the warmth of natural wood, using traditional joinery to highlight the material’s strength and grain.
After moving his workshop to Gordes in southern France in 1967, he developed a timeless body of work defined by craftsmanship, proportion, and honesty of construction. Chapo’s pieces—such as the “Godot Bed” made for Samuel Beckett—remain highly sought after.
He died in 1987, but his legacy endures through the continued production of his designs by Chapo Création, led by his son, Fidel Chapo.
