Jean Prouvé (1901 - 1984)
Jean Prouvé was a major figure of 20th-century design and architecture, whose work sits at the intersection of engineering, craftsmanship, and social commitment. Trained as a metalworker in Nancy, he developed, from the 1930s onward, a line of folded metal furniture that was demountable and rational, embodying his ideal of useful, accessible design.
In the 1950s, his collaboration with Steph Simon's gallery allowed broader dissemination of his furniture, particularly to universities and public institutions. From this partnership emerged the SCAL bed, a tubular structure designed for youth centres and boarding schools. It stands as a symbol of Prouvé's collective furniture ethos: sturdy, modular, and built for longevity.
Prouvé also created numerous prefabricated architectural systems, such as the facade panels for the INSA school in Lyon (1957), combining formal simplicity with structural intelligence, and the pioneering "Ondes Sunbreak" solar panels developed for Cameroon in the 1960s, a visionary approach to bioclimatic architecture.
Today, his work is celebrated in major museums and collections for its visionary scope and socially grounded innovation.
