La maison de l’institutrice

Winner of a 1949 Ministry of Education competition for a “mass-producible rural school with classroom and teacher accommodation” the Ateliers Jean Prouvé built two of these complexes, one in Vantoux in Moselle and the other in Bouqueval, near Paris. Like the school, the teacher’s house followed the portico principle patented by JEAN PROUVÉ in 1939 and used in a range of postwar programs, notably in the housing field. The Métropole house had been finalized in 1948. Adaptable to any site, it came in two sizes, 8×8 meters (688 sq ft) and 8×12 meters (1.033 sq ft).

The second of these was displayed at the Home Show in Paris in 1950. Its all-steel structure comprised two loadbearing portal frames which defined the interior space while leaving total freedom for the layout. The envelope used double-sided facade panels with integrated sash windows and shutters retracting into ribbed aluminum housings. There was also a glassed-in winter garden and a roof of juxtaposable aluminum roofing slabs. The interior was attractive due to the use of wood, and temperature control went well beyond the standard specifications of the time.

Besides the batch of twelve Métropole houses bought by the Ministry of Reconstruction and Town Planning, an extra house was ordered to test the behavior of aluminum, and notably its resistance to corrosion, in a coastal climate. The ministerial delegation at La Rochelle set the 8×12 meter house up at Royan, very close to the sea. Despite Prouvé’s eagerness to become involved in large scale housing production in the early 1950s, ultimately only fifteen examples of the Métropole house were built.