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James Fenton
copyright © 2007
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Originally published
in The Guardian
26 May 2007
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Jean Prouvé (1901-84) was one of the
revered figures in mid-20th-century modernism. Le Corbusier
referred to him as a constructeur, there being no precise term
for his combination of activities in the fields of architecture
and design. He ran his own factory workshop in France, from
which, in the aftermath of the second world war, he produced
three prototype prefabricated metal bungalows that were supposed
to answer the building needs of the French colonies. One went
to Niamey in Niger, the other two to Brazzaville in the Congo.
The design was not immediately popular with the French officials
who were supposed to live and work in them, so no more were
made.
Meanwhile, the French colonial era was coming
to an end, and the perceived need that the maisons tropicales
were supposed to meet might well have been considered out of
date. That need, as Prouvé saw it, was for mass-produced
houses, like mass-produced cars, cheaply available for transportation
by airplane to colonies where local materials and building skills
were (supposedly) not available.
In recent years an obsessive fan of Prouvé's
houses, Eric Touchaleaume, tracked down and bought up the three
prototypes, one of which is currently on display in New York,
by the Queensboro (or 59th Street) Bridge. It is due to be auctioned
by Christie's on June 5, when it is expected to fetch between
$4m and $6m.
A more exciting backdrop for a metal bungalow
could hardly have been chosen. From the patch of waste ground
in the shadow of the great bridge - one of those amazing super-lifesize
structures that link Manhattan to the neighbouring boroughs
- on newly constructed decking through which, impressively,
the shoots of Japanese knotweed are already pushing their way,
one can view the city skyscrapers from an optimum distance.
Nothing would induce one to come to this spot without a clear
sense of purpose (it is slap bang next to a notorious housing
project) and a good idea of how one was going to get away afterwards.
The bungalow has been jacked up on metal stilts,
not part of Prouvé's original design. Surrounded by a
traditional veranda, but with metal railings and louvred metal
shutters (where in most of the tropics one would find wood and
various forms of matting or thatch), the house has a double
skin, the outer layer designed to keep off the heat. The walls
themselves are pierced with small portholes of blue glass, allowing
a muted daylight within. There is an adjustable ventilation
system, which is supposed to be mosquito-proof, using the space
between the roof and the false ceiling.
It occurred to me, having lived in the tropics
in more than one traditional version of such a house, that one
would have to be alert to damage by rats, and to expect early
colonisation by lizards. I very much doubt that the structure
would have stayed mosquito-proof for long. But the adjustable
ventilation system seems reasonably convincing. These houses,
although designed in a spirit that consciously said "We
can produce houses in the way we produce cars, changing models
as the years go by", were nevertheless built to last, and
last they did. Although the model in New York has been extensively
restored (it was riddled with bullet holes), it has in essential
respects lasted for 50 years. And that, in the tropics, is a
long time. A comparable bungalow made with traditional materials
would have to be continually renewed. (Of course, the traditional
materials are renewable, so the system has its advantages.)
Nothing in the tropics is very old.
If you were going to buy the prototype (its
high price is supposed to reflect its iconic status as a piece
of design), you might want to fit it out with Prouvé
furniture, some examples of which Christie's are offering in
the same sale. The look that you might seek to achieve would
be that of the Air France buildings in the French colonies in
the 50s, including Prouvé's aluminium and steel demountable
dining table, or the smaller version with its Formica top. A
set of four stacking chairs in steel and plywood (found in a
Prouvé house in Niger) would be perfect at $40,000-$50,000.
The catalogue of the June 5 sale is extremely
interesting, consisting mainly of works that the same obsessive
dealer has extracted from Le Corbusier's model city of Chandigarh.
The designers who are celebrated (apart from Le Corbusier and
Prouvé) are Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand.
But it's hard to know whether to be impressed by the collection
that is up for sale, or depressed that all this furniture has
left the Chandigarh institutions for which it was made: the
high court, the assembly, the Punjab university hostel for boys
and girls, the college of architecture, the general hospital,
and so on. (You can view the catalogue online at christies.com
by putting in the sale number, 1928.)
What we are being told about in this catalogue
is a vision and idealism in design that was put at the service
of French imperialism on the one hand and post-imperial India
on the other. In the context of the Air France commissions,
it comes across as propagandistic for postwar France in a period
of active, doomed colonialism. In the context of Chandigarh,
many of its elements reappear. Now they are idealistic, speaking
to independent India after the city of Lahore had been allocated
to the newly established Pakistan and a new capital of Punjab
had to be made, with new institutions and monuments, in vast
expanses of concrete.
It's a total design, and you can (given the
cash) buy anything from the manhole covers and light fittings
to architectural models and designs, furniture and photographs
by Suresh Sharma, dating from 1965, in which the huge spaces
of Le Corbusier's vision are presented as no doubt they were
meant to be seen. You have to know it already to know that it
is India, for the rhetoric is international. In the context
of the sale, it seems like something once imperiously given
to India which is now, just as imperiously, being taken back.
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