Het Huis Stoclet in Brussel - Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten Aalst

G) Jean Prouvé
Jean Prouvé inspires us as someone who knew what it meant to combine creativity,
entrepreneurship and the ethics of work. In his oeuvre he coupled handicraft with industry
and design with architecture extending his experience yet further with each new step - as
craftsman of Art déco, as manufacturer and constructer of furniture and architecture and,
finally, as a highly valued teacher. He never sought to evolve his own unique style but
consistently sought logical answers to desired functions and the available means for their
realisation. And yet it is precisely this which accounts for the authentic, unmistakable
characteristic stamp that all his works bear.
Today, Prouvé is prized as one of the most innovative architectural and furniture
draftsman of the 20th century. Thanks to his technical knowledge of production, he
consistently developed detachable, light constructions - from small barracks to large halls,
multifunctional facade systems as well as movable or dismountable, extremely solid
furniture. As a consequence of the increasing enthusiasm for technology in recent years
Prouvé's influential inventions in building construction and simple industrial functional
furniture have been acknowledged once again and hence experienced a renewed
appreciation.
In conception, this first comprehensive and systematic touring exhibition on the
furniture and architecture, which Jean Prouvé (1901-1984) created between 1924 to the
mid 1970s, is very much in keeping with Prouvés own ideas. Thus, guest curator Prof.
Bruno Reichlin draws on the famous courses, which Prouvé held between 1957 to 1970 at
the Paris CNAM (Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers). The most important original
furniture pieces will be exhibited together with several original architectural elements
(among them a reconstructed "Maison de Sinistrés") as well as numerous architectural
models, photographs and original sketches on architecture and furniture.
The majority of exhibition pieces are drawn from the Vitra Design Museum's
inventory. In addition, important loans have been contributed by the Paris gallerists
Philippe Jousse and Patrick Seguin, the archives of the Départementales de Meurthe et
Moselle in Nancy as well by the Prouvé family.
A comprehensive catalogue, edited by Catherine Dumont d'Ayot, has been
published on the exhibition. The exhibition which was organised under the direction of the