Modern furniture disasters, the LC2 sofa

If I had a big office in a big tower with a big waiting room I would furnish it with the Le Corbusier LC2 petite sofa. I would make those who wanted to deal with me wait in the waiting room for hours, their choice, stand on a hard concrete floor or sit in an LC2 sofa. By the time they see me, they would be so defeated by the waiting room that they would succumb to my every whim. A modernist torture chamber designed by Le Corbusier himself.



The LC2 club chair of an earlier post barely passes as seating because its one redeeming quality is that it has sides, sides which just barely support and embrace you, just enough to make you feel like you aren't about to slide onto the floor.

The LC2 sofa has sides, sides which are very far apart, sides which abandon the person seated, you can only use one side at a time, so you lean on it and slowly slide off the sofa. If you don't slide, the cushion underneath you slides out. There is nothing to hold onto as the sofa slowly tells you that you are not welcome to sit on it. The backbreaking low back, the horribly firm seats and the failure of any part of the sofa to hold you in place. It rejects all but perhaps its creator, for nothing is worthy of sitting on it.

Shortly after first getting this sofa a house guest decided to sleep on the floor instead of this sofa. I tried to sit in it myself, but found the firmness of the foam infuriating. I stripped the leather off, stabbed the foam repeatedly with a large long knife in hopes of somehow breaking down the insane firmness. Yes, this is true, and no it did not work.

Since I don't have a big office in a big tower, if you have to wait outside my office and find yourself in an LC2 sofa, it's not because I am trying to break your spirit. It's because it looks cool and no one in my house wants it here.

Emma on the other hand has already had her spirit broken, she isn't allowed to go to the bathroom in the house, chew up pillows anymore or sleep on the bed, so she doesn't mind sleeping on the LC2 sofa, but sometimes she prefers a set of stairs.