Wright Auction

It takes a keen intuition and deep knowledge of the design and engineering behind these incredible moving buildings to resurrect and stabilize them for use in the 21st century. It is a study in cantilevers, balance, structural strength, and weight distribution, not to mention the many logical intricacies to the assembly. The story of these remarkable pop-up exhibitions is a journey in itself and Banneel has traveled alongside these works telling the legendary story of the nomadic architecture of Jean Prouvé.

The ultimate goal for pioneering modernist architects and designers was to achieve affordable and practical housing for the masses, yet to simultaneously bring forth a successful, serviceable design that can also be sublime, aspirational, and inspiring.

Prouvé said “there is no difference between the design of a piece of furniture and that of a house.” Whether considered as scaled-up case work, cabinetry for living, or micro-architecture, Room 10 has flexibility in functional plan and aesthetic architectural presence. The delicacy of the structure belies the ideals pursued. The ultimate goal for pioneering modernist architects and designers was to achieve affordable and practical housing for the masses, yet to simultaneously bring forth a successful, serviceable design that can also be sublime, aspirational, and inspiring. Jean Prouvé has seen to this universal and classic appeal with his factory made prefabricated bent sheet steel elements. Alain Banneel is fluent in the language and process of Atelier Prouvé, and because of this, is uniquely qualified to extend the simple and beautiful idea into the future, adapting it for many uses in various environments. The system can be constructed as a pavilion, with or without walls, or it can be constructed as a building, as a first or second story. 

When modernism’s founding father Walter Gropius visited Oscar Niemeyer’s home built into the natural rock at Canoas, in Brazil, he famously noted that, to paraphrase, although it was beyond beautiful, it was not a “multipliable” design solution; it was not an idea that could be applied to the issues of mass housing. Niemeyer of course was quick to point out that this was not the point of the project. Great mutual respect aside, Gropius’ comments were misdirected. For a design to be fitting for both public and private use—to offer an elegant solution for the ongoing question of public housing, while also exuding a connoisseur’s high-style, is most unusual. Jean Prouvé however, does just that with his mobile architecture.

Room 10 echoes this unspoken truth, a no-nonsense approach, culminating in the creation of a design object where function and elegant beauty are integral and atomic, inseparable from each other.

Another related timeless design from the Atelier Jean Prouvé in Maxeville, is the demountable Standard Chair that shipped flat and functioned flawlessly for Air France, Brazzaville and other remote locations in the 1950s. This chair is a perfect example of what might be called “engineering made visible.” The leg at the underside of the seat flairs out to support weight and then tapers off and down to near weightlessness where the strength of the structure is less critical. There is effervescence and lightness in the design of the Standard Chair that immediately conveys form emerging from engineering requirements, as opposed to form born of a flight of aesthetic fancy. Room 10 echoes this unspoken truth, a no-nonsense approach, culminating in the creation of a design object where function and elegant beauty are integral and atomic, inseparable from each other. 

Big or small, here or there, then or now, the timeless and elegant solutions of Jean Prouvé engage both the mind and the body. Practical use and truth in material is the basis of the Prouvé philosophy. The universal aesthetic of beauty and purity is a by-product of this ultimate honesty and practicality, literally coming out of engineering. Yes, Prouvé’s eternal Standard Chair cradles the body, but also soothes the spirit. We as viewer have an immediate and innate sense of the invisible calculations required for a Standard Chair or a Propped Type demountable structure, as we confront each perfect, pared down object. Prouvé’s dream of affordable housing for the masses and his use of industrial methodology for domestic application did not materialize largely during his lifetime, but the crystalline credo remains and guides us—face the world’s design problems with total truth-saying and fearlessness.