Jean Prouvè, social design against the elites

Jean Prouvé designed prefabricated houses, buildings with aluminum, he produced simple, elegant, resistant and functional furniture in series.

He conceived his work for as many people as possible.

Away from elitism, he believed that the 20th century society that had overcome two world wars could benefit from the industrialization of construction.

An idea that made him a key figure in the design of that time for experts, students and lovers of construction, architecture and furniture, but not for a majority for whom he remains unknown.

CaixaForum Madrid, in collaboration with the Center Pompidou in Paris, vindicates the figure of Prouvé in a great retrospective that recalls that from apparently flimsy materials assembled into multiplying structures, history can be made.

He did not have the title of architect, nor was he a designer.

Prouvé (Paris, 1901 - Nancy, 1984) began as a blacksmith, with the forge, then he moved on to construction and finally to industry.

He called himself an industrialist because he wanted to transfer his fascination with aviation and the automobile to construction.

"Note that the most industrialized objects, whether they work on wheels, fly or are static, are the most innovative and in constant development, both in quality and price," the exhibition reads.

"The only industry that is not working is construction."

Its materials were metal, wood, tubular structures, and folded sheet metal that allowed it to fulfill its objective: that its pieces were useful and durable.

"An approach that did not prevent him from working with great architects such as Le Corbusier and Robert Mallet-Stevens", recalls Marjorie Occelli, the curator of the exhibition

The Universe of Jean Prouvé.

Architecture / Industry / Furniture.

The 235 pieces - of which 146 are original -, including models, plans, photographs, drawings, furniture, documents and facsimiles, in the exhibition cover Prouvé's work and also reveal that there was an intention in each of its lines. ideological.

Europe was collapsing in the middle of World War II and Prouvé decided to collaborate with the Resistance, assume the mayoralty of Nancy (1944) and not stop devising useful buildings in a warlike context.

With Le Corbusier he built pavilions (with bedrooms, dining rooms, infirmary) with a system that combined central porches and modular elements for the facades.

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• Design for a better world, according to Jean Prouvé

From those designs came pieces that would later be adapted to their prefabricated homes.

"My houses are very simple because I believe that industrialization is only possible with a small number of components," said Prouvé.

"When there are 5,000 nuts and bolts in a house, you have to tighten all 5,000 nuts and bolts."

Therefore, as shown in the exhibition, he advocated trying to convince a majority that this type of accommodation was an alternative.

To achieve this, in 1946 it took over the Maxéville factory, adapted to mass production.

There he produced the pieces of his constructions that were later assembled in the same work.

With this method he built the Casa Tropique (1949), the Casa Métropole (1950) and the Casa Coque (1951), three of his best-known works that were assembled from curved panels on metal supports.

Each one of these constructions was devised with the furniture.

"He always said that building a piece of furniture or a house was the same," recalls Olivier Cinqualbre, the other curator of the exhibition

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Their chairs and tables were also conceived for schools, universities and for “all the places where life is made”, explains the expert.

When he lacked materials, as happened with steel in World War II, he looked for a way to continue working and turned to wood to make chairs.

"Later he introduced some aluminum elements in this chair, removable elements, so that it could be transported, folded, economically," says Cinqualbre.

Most of these pieces are part of the funds of the Center

Pompidou thanks to the donations made by the sons of the industrialist who allowed other public institutions, individuals and former collaborators of Prouvé to deliver the works they preserved to the French museum.

The creator's work is safe in an institution whose design helped decide.

Prouvé was a member of the jury that awarded the construction of the Pompidou headquarters to the architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers.

“Right now it seems that the explosion of negative utopias presents the world as a dead end.

The health crisis accentuates this tendency to reclusion.

We are like losing the idea of ​​collective life.

When the pandemic is over we have to see an open door.

Prouvé would see it because he believed in the ability of architecture and design to change people's lives ”, concludes Isabel Salgado, director of the CaixaForum exhibition area.

The universe of Jean Prouvé.

Architecture / Industry / Furniture

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From March 4 to June 13 at CaixaForum Madrid.