He apprenticed at a Paris-based British furniture manufacturer, Waring & Gillow,[1] after he failed his entrance exams to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.
[2] Chareau designed the first house in France made of steel and glass, the Maison de Verre.
Chareau and his wife fled Nazi-occupied Paris to Marseilles and Morocco and eventually settled in the New York.
Though he made efforts to show his work at MOMA and at the Musee National d'Art Moderne in Paris, he died in 1950, relatively unknown and penniless.
[3] In 2016, The Jewish Museum in New York City mounted the exhibition, Pierre Chareau: Modern Architecture and Design which explored the architect's work.