Prouvés Ground-Breaking New Bond Street House

Marcus McDonald, UK Director, Modern Decorative Art + Design, commented: “Jean Prouvé was one of the most prolific and esteemed designers of the 20th Century, producing innovative furniture and architecture. His demountable house was both a practical solution to an immediate problem and an important design landmark. These stylish small-scale architectural feats are now highly sought-after design works, appearing in galleries around the world, and inspiring new generations of makers. We are very excited to be able to offer a superlative example – which until quite recently had remained in the same family collection since it was acquired.”

Jean Prouvé (1901-1984) played a pivotal role in the development of cutting-edge technology and modular systems for mass production in the post-war modernist period. He was son of the artist Victor Prouvé, a member of the art collective ‘L’École de Nancy', which believed in forging greater links between the arts and industry and making art with a social consciousness. He trained as an artisan blacksmith and his intimate knowledge of metal remained the foundation of his practice. Having opened his first workshop at the age of 24, he established the Atelier Jean Prouvé in 1931, where he began to produce light-weight metal furniture of his own design, as well as collaborating with some of the best-known designers of his time, including Le Corbusier and Charlotte Perriand. 

Prouvé favoured the public sector, which be felt reflected a social ideal and offered economies of scale. The potential for mass production inspired Prouvé to develop and patent industrial products using folded sheet metal for the construction of buildings. By 1936 he was producing a catalogue of standard models for hospitals, schools and offices. The Second World War led him to move his operations to Maxéville, just outside Nancy, where he developed his famous prefabricated houses, followed by the flat-packed, Maison Tropicale, for use in Africa.

In 1958, Prouvé collaborated with sculptor Alexander Calder to construct the steel base of La Spirale, a monumental mobile for the UNESCO site in Paris. In 1971, he was the president of the Jury for the design of the Centre Pompidou in Paris. He played an important role in the choice of the winning project by Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano. He died in Nancy in 1984.

Prouvé's work is included in private and public collections worldwide, including Centre Pompidou, Paris and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Permanent galleries devoted to Prouvé’s work have been installed at the Musée des Beaux-arts and Musée de l’Histoire du Fer in Nancy.