Jean Prouvé

Jean Prouvé
Jean Prouvé (1981)
Born	8 April 1901 Paris
Died	23 March 1984(1984-03-23) (aged 82) Nancy
Nationality	French

Jean Prouvé (8 April 1901 – 23 March 1984) was a French metal worker, self-taught architect and designer. He is also designated as "constructor". His main achievement was transferring manufacturing technology from industry to architecture, without losing aesthetic qualities. His design skills were not limited to one discipline. During his career Jean Prouvé was involved in architectural design, industrial design, structural design and furniture design.

Prouvé was born in Paris, France, the second of seven children of the artist Victor Prouvé and the pianist Marie Duhamel. The Prouvés belonged to a lively artistic circle, which included the glass artist Emile Gallé, and the furniture designer Louis Majorelle. Jean grew up surrounded by the ideals and energy of "l'École de Nancy," the art collective to which his father belonged. Its goals were to make art readily accessible, to forge links between art and industry, as well as between art and social consciousness.

Between 1914 and 1917, Jean Prouvé spent three years in the school of fine arts of Nancy. Then, he was first apprenticed to a blacksmith, Émile Robert in Enghien (near Paris), and then to the parisian metal workshop of Aldabert Szabo. In Nancy in 1923 he opened what would be the first in a string of his own workshops and studios. He produced wrought iron lamps, chandeliers, hand rails and began designing furniture like his « Chaise inclinable » of 1924. As a craftsman in wrought iron, he was commissioned between 1923 and 1939 by local architects as Jean Bourgon, Pierre Le Bourgeois, Raphaël Oudeville or Alfred Thomas to contribute to their Art deco projects. He abandoned gradually the decorative style of that time to prefer smooth surfaces of folded metal plates. He used this material to design storefronts, elevators or furniture (for student housing in 1932, for example).

Jean Prouvé was also involved in the activity of the Comité Nancy-Paris between 1923 and 1927 with the architect Jacques André or the painter Etienne Cournault. He became a member of the committee in 1926.

He supplied the gates for the Verdun Memorial in 1928 and various parts for a number of buildings in Paris, including those designed by Robert Mallet-Stevens, for whom he produced the railings and gratings for the private mansions in Rue Mallet-Stevens in 1926.