One spotlight of 2025’s European Wonderful Artwork Basis (TEFAF) honest in New York (9-13 Could) shall be a jewel of post-war French architectural historical past: two yellow metal frames, resembling large upside-down tuning forks, every standing 3m tall. They have been fabricated in 1947-1948 as a part of the Croismare Skilled Coaching College for Glassmakers, the biggest demountable construction ever constructed by French designer and self-taught architect Jean Prouvé. Design supplier Patrick Seguin, who has championed Prouvé’s legacy because the late Eighties (with initiatives in recent times together with the showcasing of Prouvé’s Home of Higher Days in Paris in 2024, and the set up of demountable home at Château La Coste in 2019) and owns the world’s greatest assortment of his structure, is that includes Croismare together with 9 different Prouvé buildings on the honest.
After the Second World Conflict, France wanted to rebuild, and rapidly. Prouvé, who educated as a metallic craftsman, had developed an ingenious system for making small, demountable buildings with load-bearing portal frames, for functions starting from army barracks to refugee housing. The nomadic high quality of his buildings additionally mirrored his embrace of environmentalism, looking for to make what he referred to as ‘structure that leaves no hint on the panorama’.
Uncover Croismare faculty, Jean Prouvé’s largest demountable construction
One in every of Prouvé’s associates was grasp glassmaker Paul Daum, a member of the French resistance who died in a focus camp in 1944. Prouvé and the Glassmakers’ Union honoured Daum’s want to make sure the trade’s future by constructing a coaching centre for younger apprentices. Regardless of Croismare’s spectacular dimension (8m x 32m plus awnings), Seguin says, ‘There isn’t a distinction between the development ideas of Prouvé’s 6 x 6 home and this monumental constructing.’ The previous could possibly be assembled by three individuals in a day, whereas Croismare took six males one week to assemble, armed with little greater than a screwdriver and ladder.
Croismare comprises all the basics of Prouvé structure. Its inside is traversed by a succession of portal frames, six yellow and one inexperienced, marking the separation between classroom and refectory (an adjoining dormitory now belongs to a collector). Jointed central beams join the portals alongside the size of the ceiling, whereas floor-to-ceiling glazed doorways supply mild and expansive views of the panorama.
Jean Prouvé’s faculty for glassmaking apprentices was in-built 1948 in Croismare, in north-east France, and closed in 1953
(Picture credit score: © Galerie Patrick Seguin / © DACS, 2025)
In 1953, Croismare was closed, and the constructing was deserted till the Nineteen Nineties, when Seguin and his associate, Philippe Jousse, acquired it. After the 2 sellers parted methods in 2000, Jousse stored Croismare. He began restorations, together with changing a stone part with wooden panels similar to the others, and eradicating the dropped ceiling to reveal the exceptional skeleton of Prouvé’s work. Seguin purchased Croismare from Jousse 4 years in the past and continued its meticulous restoration, from retouching the paint on the portal frames to changing the poured concrete base with a conveyable system of Ductal concrete blocks (first developed by Jean Nouvel for an additional Prouvé construction).
The Croismare faculty photographed at Laurence and Patrick Seguin’s property within the south of France
(Picture credit score: © Galerie Patrick Seguin / © DACS, 2025)
Seguin remembers Pritzker Prize laureate Richard Rogers as soon as saying, ‘If we taught structure at highschool, Prouvé could be the most effective particular person to do it’, since his strategies have been so elegant and easy to know. Prouvé made no distinction between developing furnishings or buildings: kind equalled operate. Seguin holds up an archival photograph of a 1953 constructing for which Prouvé constructed a metallic awning, evaluating it to a photograph of his ‘Compas’ desk. ‘All that’s lacking is the chairs.’
It’s inconceivable to guess who would possibly purchase Croismare; up to now, Prouvé’s buildings have been snapped up by collectors from Azzedine Alaïa to Richard Prince. A brand new e-book by Seguin’s gallery, Jean Prouvé: From Furnishings to Structure, The Laurence and Patrick Seguin Assortment, affords a take a look at how the couple dwell with Prouvé’s works. It comprises pictures of their house in Paris, the place midcentury chairs and tables exist fortunately alongside artworks by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Wade Guyton, and their house within the south of France, the place Prouvé homes are scattered across the property, as trendy as ever.
TEFAF New York is on present from 9-13 Could on the Park Avenue Armory
tefaf.com
patrickseguin.com
This text seems within the Could 2025 subject of Wallpaper*, obtainable in print on newsstands from 3 April, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple Information +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* at present
Supply: Wallpaper
