Ateliers Jean Prouvé

France

Corporation

Produzent

Jean Prouvé, who grew up in a family of artists, established his workshop for metalworking in 1923 in Nancy, France, with just a handful of employees. In 1925 he met Le Corbusier and Robert Mallet-Stevens in Paris. Modern machinery enabled him to produce sheet metal elements for buildings, in addition to craft objects. His contacts with modernists generated extensive orders for door and window frames, glazed façades, staircases, and movable metal walls. Prouvé was already turning out his first furniture models, as well, and in 1930 he began operating as a constructeur (constructor). For both architecture and furniture, he applied metal-folding principles to achieve highly sturdy constructions that used as little material as possible. In 1931 he founded Ateliers Jean Prouvé in Nancy, which won its first big contract to furnish the new dormitory at Université de Nancy. In 1933 he set up a department dedicated to research and planning. Aiming to mass-produce the construction components required for his projects, Prouvé made a number of large equipment investments throughout the 1930s, which led to the company’s precarious financial situation despite increasing sales. In 1938, a department for furniture development was set up, mainly to equip schools and offices. Les Ateliers Jean Prouvé soon afterwards began to collaborate with Pierre Jeanneret, initially producing supporting structures for temporary schools and dwellings. During World War II, the company was predominantly concerned with furniture design. Since metal was in short supply, Prouvé worked with wood and cooperated with the company Vauconsant. After the war, the planning office concentrated on producing temporary emergency shelters. The furniture division also made up a significant share of the company’s total sales. In 1947 the firm relocated to Maxéville, a suburb of Nancy, where it worked to advance the mass production of metal building elements. Starting in 1949, Jean Prouvé began collaborating on the distribution of his furniture with Steph Simon, through whom the pieces could be ordered. Designs from Ateliers Prouvé were shown in exhibitions such as the Salon des arts ménagers. The year 1949 also brought an intensified collaboration with L’Aluminium Français, a firm whose heavy financial participation in Ateliers Jean Prouvé translated into increasing influence. In 1953 Jean Prouvé felt so severely limited in his freedom to act within the firm that he gave up his posts as general director and chairman of the supervisory board, and left his own company. It was no longer possible for him to develop his designs directly on the machines. After his departure, the company changed names and owners several times. The furniture that Jean Prouvé had developed in the post-war period – including some designs with Charlotte Perriand – was sold from 1956 through 1974 exclusively in Steph Simon’s Paris gallery. Stoullig, Claire, and Catherine Coley, Jean Prouvé, exhibition catalogue, Musée de l’École de Nancy; Musée lorrain; Musée des beaux-arts de Nancy (Paris: Somogy, 2012). Tropeano, Ruggero, and Mathias Remmele, Jean Prouvé – Charles & Ray Eames. Two Great Constructors – Parallels and Differences (Weil am Rhein: Vitra Design Museum, 2002). Vegesack, Alexander von, ed., Jean Prouvé: The Poetics of the Technical Object, exhibition catalogue, Vitra Design Museum (Weil am Rhein: 2005).