Jean Prouve: The Poetics of Technical Objects

Jean Prouvé (1901-1984) is one of the major figures in twentieth-century architecture and design. This publication is devoted to his technical and planning-oriented thinking. From the start--first as an ironmonger, then as an industrialist during the heyday of the ateliers in Maxéville, later with CIMT and as an engineering consultant--Jean Prouvé pursued the project of construction "by industry," as he himself phrased it in the title of his book Une architecture par l'industrie (Architecture by Industry). The volume provides an overview of his technical ideas and concepts, his tools and production structures, his collaborative work with architects and engineers as well as characteristic projects: furniture, buildings and construction systems. Prouvé's world is not only explored here in essays by 42 authors, and is also represented in Prouvé's own texts and drawings for his lectures at CNAM, the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers.