Jean Prouvé: The Poetics of the Technical Object

Front Cover
Vitra Design Museum, 2006 - Architecture - 384 pages
Jean Prouvé inspires us as someone who knew what it meant to combine creativity, entrepreneurship and the ethics of work. In his oeuvre he coupled handicraft with industry and design with architecture extending his experience yet further with each new step - as craftsman of Art déco, as manufacturer and constructer of furniture and architecture and, finally, as a highly valued teacher. He never sought to evolve his own unique style but consistently sought logical answers to desired functions and the available means for their realisation. And yet it is precisely this which accounts for the authentic, unmistakable characteristic stamp that all his works bear. Today, Prouvé is prized as one of the most innovative architectural and furniture draftsman of the 20th century. Thanks to his technical knowledge of production, he consistently developed detachable, light constructions - from small barracks to large halls, multifunctional facade systems as well as movable or dismountable, extremely solid furniture. As a consequence of the increasing enthusiasm for technology in recent years Prouvé's influential inventions in building construction and simple industrial functional furniture have been acknowledged once again and hence experienced a renewed appreciation. In conception, this first comprehensive and systematic touring exhibition on the furniture and architecture, which Jean Prouvé (1901-1984) created between 1924 to the mid 1970s, is very much in keeping with Prouvés own ideas. Thus, guest curator Prof. Bruno Reichlin draws on the famous courses, which Prouvé held between 1957 to 1970 at the Paris CNAM (Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers). The most important original furniture pieces will be exhibited together with several original architectural elements (among them a reconstructed "Maison de Sinistrés") as well as numerous architectural models, photographs and original sketches on architecture and furniture. The majority of exhibition pieces are drawn from the Vitra Design Museum's inventory. In addition, important loans have been contributed by the Paris gallerists Philippe Jousse and Patrick Seguin, the archives of the Départementales de Meurthe et Moselle in Nancy as well by the Prouvé family. A comprehensive catalogue, edited by Catherine Dumont d'Ayot, has been published on the exhibition. The exhibition which was organised under the direction of the Vitra Design Museum in cooperation with the Design Museum Akihabara, Tokyo and the Deutschen Architektur Museum, Frankfurt Main.

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From the Workshop to
32
Louis Fruitet
106
Sheet Metal and Welding
130
Copyright

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