LOS ANGELES, CA.- The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) presents the first U.S. museum exhibition devoted to the work of French designer Jean Prouvé. Including an array of furniture, architectural elements, and photographs relating to three of Prouvé's modular buildings, the exhibition showcases the objects in a uniquely designed displayscape. Jean Prouvé: Three Nomadic Structures opens at MOCA Pacific Design Center (8687 Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood) on August 14, 2005, and remains on view through November 27, 2005.

Jean Prouvé: Three Nomadic Structures is organized by architect Evan Douglis and historian Robert Rubin and was originally presented at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. The exhibition features a selection of furniture, architectural elements, and photographs, including vintage photographic prints by Lucien Hervé, relating to three prefabricated buildings—the Glassmaking School in Croismare, France (1948), the Tropical House for Brazzaville and Niamey, Africa (1949-51), and the Aluminum Centenary Pavilion in Villepinte, France (1954). The structures respectively evoke important aspects of Prouvé's career: his role in education, his interest in the tropics, and his use of aluminum. MOCA's presentation is coordinated by MOCA Curator of Architecture and Design Brooke Hodge.

Prouvé sought to create furniture and simple lightweight metal building systems whose constructive logic permitted easy fabrication and use. His major preoccupation was with prefabrication technology for architecture, and all his work, from cafeteria chairs to public buildings to new solutions for temporary housing, adheres to the dictum "Never design anything that cannot be made."

The Glassmaking School in Croismare, France, was conceptualized by a French crystal manufacturer who hoped to revive the glassmaking industry through a school of apprenticeship, and reflected Prouvé’s interest in teaching. The design is based on a fork-style portico support and includes adjustable ventilated square panels. Since the 1950s, the structure has been vacant, but largely intact, and recently was acquired and dismantled, remaining in storage in France. The exhibition features a lighting fixture from the Glassmaking School and school desks and chairs, staple designs of Prouvé's Maxéville, France, workshops.

Fabricated in France, then transported in cargo planes to Niamey, Africa, the Tropical House was a lightweight steel and aluminum prototype for a building system that encompassed larger scale public buildings as well as housing. Recently, one of the Brazzaville examples was shipped from Africa to Paris where it was carefully restored. The exhibition includes easy-to-assemble lightweight furniture made for export to the tropics and a façade element from the Brazzaville house. Also on view are sun breakers from the Air France dormitory office in Brazzaville, Congo, a project on which Prouvé assisted Charlotte Perriand.

Designed as an exhibition hall, the Aluminum Centenary Pavilion is a seminal example of Prouvé's preoccupation with aluminum. The pavilion consists of an airplane wing roof on vertical supports of extruded aluminum. It was Prouvé's most ambitious work and integrates his solutions of transport and site limitations into a structural logic. Originally erected on the banks of the Seine river, the pavilion traveled by barge to Lille and was bolted onto an existing exposition hall. In 1992, it was moved to Villepinte and carefully restored, and presently, it is used to host exhibitions. MOCA's exhibition features period photographs by Lucien Hervé documenting the pavilion's history, contemporary images by Mark Lyon of the structure in Villepinte, and architectural fragments in aluminum.

The exhibition installation presents Prouvé’s commitment to cutting-edge technology and his contributions to modular systems for mass production through a unique displayscape membrane. Architect and Exhibition Co-Curator Evan Douglis designed the membrane utilizing the most current applications in architectural software along with rapid prototyping fabrication. The bright blue wave flows throughout the exhibition space, displaying Prouvé's three-dimensional artifacts.

The design and fabrication of Jean Prouvé: Three Nomadic Structures builds on Prouvé's modular vocabulary and stretches current digital and fabrication technologies while opening new territory for both architects and architectural historians. Presenting Prouvé's designs within the contemporary displayscape pays tribute to the timelessness of his work but also reaffirms the profound relevance of his ideas for a new generation of architectural production.

About the Artist
Born in 1901 in Nancy, France, Jean Prouvé grew up surrounded by the principals of his father's art collective, the School of Nancy. Although he was never committed to a single aesthetic, he adopted the school's ideas in his own designs, such as making art readily accessible and forging a relationship between art, industry, and social consciousness.

Prouvé trained as an artistic ironworker, and in 1923, opened his first workshop producing wrought iron lamps, chandeliers, hand rails, and furniture. In 1931, he started Ateliers Jean Prouvé and collaborated with various French architects and furniture designers. After World War II, he was commissioned by the Reconstruction Ministry to mass-produce frame houses for refugees. In 1947 he built the Maxéville factory. Here he refined his ideas on the industrialization of architecture which informed his work since the 1930s. After losing control of Maxéville to the French aluminum monopoly that had been one of his initial strategic investors, he worked primarily as a consultant. During this phase of his career, he developed new architectural uses of plastic. He chaired the jury which selected Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers to design the Centre Pompidou in Paris. A revered teacher at CNAM (Centre National des Arts et Metiers), Paris, Prouvé died in 1984.

Exhibition Tour: The exhibition was previously on view at the Columbia University Architecture Galleries, New York (September 24, 2003–April 23, 2004).

Public Programs: MOCA Art Talks Presented by Gallery C
MOCA Art Talks Presented by Gallery C are informal discussions on current exhibitions led by arts professionals. The talks take place in the exhibition galleries unless otherwise noted. Attendance is free with museum admission and no reservations are required. The MOCA Art Talks Presented by Gallery C series is made possible by The Times Mirror Foundation Endowment and Gallery C.

Evan Douglis, exhibition co-curator; chair, undergraduate architecture, Pratt Institute School of Architecture. Robert Rubin, exhibition co-curator, historian
Sunday, August 14 at 3pm, MOCA Pacific Design Center. Funding: Jean Prouvé: Three Nomadic Structures was originally presented at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation in New York and was organized by architect Evan Douglis and historian Robert Rubin. MOCA's presentation is made possible by the generous support of The Ron Burkle Endowment for Architecture and Design Programs; Dwell; and Mandy and Clifford J. Einstein.