Jean Prouvé Architecture, Prefabricated and Dismantable Houses

As you may know already I’ve showcased various bits of imagery over the year from gallery Patrick Seguin, which happens to be one of my favourite “go to” places at the moment. Patrick is actually quite a prominent figure of the 20th century design world who helped promote various famous creatives such as the brilliant Charlotte Perriand, Pierre Jeanneret, Le Corbusier, and the man who we’ll be talking about today, Jean Prouvé. They’re always putting together some great exhibitions and the newest one for 2012 will be hosted at Design Miami and will showcase Jean Prouve’s architecture, specifically a prefabricated house which only took seven hours to assemble and was presented in Paris in 1956.

This led me onto researching quite a bit about Jean Prouve’s architecture, specifically taking interest in the houses that could be disassembled and put back together in other locations, also prefabricated houses which were revolutionary for the time. I found out it was Abbé Pierre who commissioned Prouvé to make emergency housing to help the homeless after an old woman and child died of Hypothermia in Paris. In just a few weeks Jean perfected a model combining his earlier experiments which could be mass produced for a fraction of the cost, unfortunately it was too ahead of it’s time and problems with the bureaucrats led to an unfinished project.

Although this wasn’t completed the houses created before this are what led up to this final house, for example the “Dismantable House” made out of metal and wood which was first built in 1944 to rehouse war victims in Lorraine. The components could be shipped directly to bomb-devastated villages where they could be assembled on site in a day by just two people, quite incredible if you think about it.

So what we have here is a selection of imagery thanks to Patrick Seguin of these homes which in my opinion are fantastic works of art. Not only are they truly functional and serve a purpose, they also look great and make perfect sense in terms of design and form. You’re sure to enjoy perusing these photos and admiring the work that Prouvé has created over his lifetime, head towards the Seguin website via the link below for more.

www.patrickseguin.com

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