6X9 DEMOUNTABLE HOUSE, 1944

In response to an order from the state, at the end of the War, JEAN PROUVÉ began designing temporary houses for the homeless in Lorraine and Franche-Comté.

Fine-tuning his already patented axial portal frame, he saw a quick, economical and adaptable solution as an urgent priority. The area of 6×6 meters laid down by the Ministry of Reconstruction and Town Planning, and later enlarged to 6×9 meters, was partitioned into three rooms immediately habitable on the day of assemblage. This meant that these country families did not have to move while building was going on.

Designed to be rapidly assembled on the sites of destroyed homes and, if need be, demounted and moved elsewhere, these veritable ʺarchitectural featsʺ were made up of light, prefabricated components of metal and wood. Steel, subject to strict quotas at the time, was reserved for the bent steel skeleton, into which were inserted simple, standardized wood panels. Jean Prouvé would later develop and reapply this constructive principle to durable and lasting reconstruction.

 

6X6 DEMOUNTABLE HOUSE, 1944

In response to an order from the state, at the end of World War II, JEAN PROUVÉ began designing temporary houses for the homeless in Lorraine and Franche-Comté. Fine-tuning his already patented axial portal frame, he saw a quick, economical and adaptable solution as an urgent priority. The area of 6×6 meters (388 sq ft) laid down by the Ministry of Reconstruction and Town Planning, and later enlarged to 6×9 meters (581 sq ft), was partitioned into three rooms immediately habitable on the day of assemblage. This meant that these families who had lost their homes did not have to move while building was going on.

Designed to be rapidly assembled on the sites of destroyed homes and, if need be, demounted and moved elsewhere, these veritable architectural feats were made up of light, prefabricated components of metal and wood. Steel, subject to strict quotas at the time, was reserved for the bent steel skeleton, into which were inserted simple, standardized wood panels. The roof was of bitumen- coated building paper.

Jean Prouvé chose this constructional principle with a view to its application to definitive rebuilding.

Le Corbusier

Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, who chose to be known as Le Corbusier, was born in Switzerland in 1887. As architect, urban planner, painter, writer, designer and theorist, he was active mostly in France.

In 1922, Le Corbusier and his cousin Pierre Jeanneret opened an architectural studio in Paris at 35 rue de Sèvres, a partnership that would last until 1940. They began experimenting with furniture design after inviting the architect Charlotte Perriand to join the studio in 1928. The following year Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand presented several models, including an armchair with tip-up back, a big and small version of the Grand Confort armchair, a chaise longue, a table and standard storage units at the Salon d’Automne in an installation titled Equipment for the Home.

Le Corbusier placed systems of harmony and proportion at the centre of his design philosophy. His faith in the mathematical order of the universe was closely bound to the golden section, which he explicitly used in his Modulor system for the scale of architectural proportion. He saw this system as a continuation of the long tradition of the works of Vitruvius, Leonardo da Vinci and Leon Battista Alberti, and others who used the proportions of the human body to improve the appearance and function of architecture. The Villa Savoye (1929-1931) exemplifies the ideas that Le Corbusier’ had been developing throughout the 1920s in his publications “Five points of architecture” and “Vers une architecture”.

After World War II, Le Corbusier sought efficient ways to house large numbers of people in response to the urban housing crisis. He believed that his new, modern architectural forms would provide an innovative solution that would raise the quality of life for the lower classes. Le Corbusier was at his most influential in the sphere of urban planning, and was a founding member of the Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM). He realized some of his urban planning schemes on a small scale by constructing a series of unités (housing block units) around France. The most famous of these was the Unité d’Habitation of Marseilles (1946-1952). In the 1950s, a unique opportunity to translate his concept on a grand scale presented itself in the construction of Chandigarh, India.

His visionary books, his startling white houses and his progressive urban plans set him at the head of the modern movement in the 1920s, while in the 1930s he became more of a complex and skeptical explorer of cultural and architectural possibilities. Le Corbusier frequently shifted position, serving as ‘Old Master’ of the establishment of modern architecture and as unpredictable and charismatic leader for the young.

Before his death in 1965, he established the Fondation Le Corbusier in Paris to look after and make available to scholars his library, architectural drawings, sketches and paintings.

JEAN ROYÈRE

 

In 1931, aged 29, Jean Royère (1902-1981) resigned from a comfortable position in the import-export trade in order to set up business as an interior designer. He learnt his new trade in the cabinetmaking workshops of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine in Paris. In 1934, he signed the new layout of the Brasserie Carlton on the Champs Elysées and found immediate success. This was the beginning of an international career that was to last until the early 1970s. A key figure of the Avant-garde in the 1950s, Royère tackled all kinds of decoration work and opened branches in the Near East and Latin America. Among his patrons were King Farouk, King Hussein of Jordan, and the Shah of Iran, who were captivated by his freedom of creation and his elegance and entrusted him with the layout of their palaces. Royère pioneered an original style combining bright colors, organic forms and precious materials within a wide range of imaginative accomplishments. In 1980, he left France for the United States, where he lived until his death.