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  COME VEDERE L'ARCHITETTURA CONTEMPORANEA HOW TO SEE CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE
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EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS
BUILDINGS
 
1925 - 1934
Tel Aviv
PatrickGeddes  
Israel [Yisra'el] Tel Aviv [Gush Dan]
Tel Aviv the White City, Roma, MAXXI, 16 may / 2 september 2018
1936 - 1937
Asilo d'infanzia Antonio Sant'Elia
GiuseppeTerragni  
Italy [Italia] Como
Giuseppe Terragni per i bambini: l’Asilo Sant’Elia, Como (Italy), Pinacoteca Civica, 8 june / 4 november 2018
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ARCHITECTS
 
David Chipperfield
David Chipperfield Architects Works 2018, Vicenza (Italy), Basilica Palladiana, 11 may / 2 september 2018
Gianluca Peluffo
Paradigma. Il tavolo dell’architetto, Firenze, Museo Novecento, 3 july / 6 september 2018
Angelo Mangiarotti
Angelo Mangiarotti. La tettonica dell’assemblaggio / The Tectonics of Assembly
Winterthur (Switzerland), ZHAW Departement Architektur, Gestaltung und Bauingenieurwesen, 4 / 20 october 2016
Les Acacias (Switzerland), Maison de l'Architecture, Pavillon Sicli, 1 / 16 september 2018
Bruno Zevi
Architetti di Zevi, MAXXI, Bruno Zevi, Roma, 2018Gli architetti di Zevi. Storia e controstoria dell’architettura italiana 1944 – 2000, Roma, MAXXI, 25 april / 16 september 2018
Jean Prouvé
Jean Prouvé. Architecte des Jours Meilleurs / Architect for Better Days, Arles (France), LUMA, Grande Halle, Parc des Ateliers, 20 october 2017 / spring 2018

As part of its guest program, the LUMA Foundation, together with Paris-based Galerie Patrick Seguin, is pleased to announce JEAN PROUVÉ: Architect for Better Days, a major survey exhibition devoted to the innovative twentieth-century French designer of furniture and architecture. Comprising twelve prefabricated buildings created between 1939 and 1969, this exhibition features the largest number of Prouvé’s demountable construction systems ever assembled in a single location, and aims to revisit the functional side of his architecture, a focus that is as timely and relevant as ever in light of today’s housing and migratory crisis.

Following the installation of four houses at the Parc des Ateliers in Arles in May, the full exhibition opens October 20, 2017 and runs through spring 2018. That the structures are installed within and in close proximity to La Grande Halle – an exhibition venue wrought from a nineteenth-century foundry—is a fitting tribute to Prouvé’s training as an artisan metalworker.

Jean Prouvé (1901-1984), regarded today as one of the most enduring and important figures of twentieth-century design, approached the construction of furniture in the same way he constructed a house. In order to describe this balance of material integrity, innovative and economical construction, and elemental design, Le Corbusier designated Prouvé a constructeur. At once an architect and an engineer, the term encompasses the singularity of Prouvé’s elegant approach as well as his vital social motivation, manufacturing “brilliant solutions” for the modern era’s most urgent needs. Though Prouvé is today synonymous with the bent sheet-steel frames of his now-iconic furniture, his seminal contributions to modern architecture and his socially engaged praxis as constructeur –united the realms of industry, architecture, engineering and design– deserve far more attention than they have historically been afforded.

Prouvé’s social consciousness in design was forged at a young age, inherently tied to his conception and production of craft. He privileged collaboration, the integrity of material processes, and the ethical applications of industrial technologies across the five decades of his career. Early on, Prouvé’s experimental use of materials (specifically steel and, later, aluminum) led to collaborations with Robert Mallet-Stevens, and, with Pierre Jeanneret, Le Corbusier, and Charlotte Perriand, he became a founding member of UAM (1929).

Acutely aware of the shifting social and political landscape of his time, Prouvé adapted his construction system to the exigencies of his historical moment. His metal building systems used economical but durable construction materials that could easily be assembled, dismantled, transported, and modified. In the 1930s, Prouvé began to create prototypes and secure patents for portable building systems, or “demountable” houses.

The iterations featured in JEAN PROUVÉ: Architect for Better Days – including the small series of portable homes Prouvé produced in the late 1930s, prefabricated pressed steel and wood military barracks, temporary accommodations for refugees, and his final demountable prototype created for Ferembal, an industrial packing company near Nancy (1948)– each attest to the development and modification of the structures designed by Prouvé according to the demands of their time.

As he adapted his prefabricated systems to both civilian and military use, Prouvé was praised during the Second World War for his audacious designs, innovative construction techniques, economic yet quality use of materials, and combination of scientific and humanist design principles. Following his support of the French Resistance during the war, Prouvé was appointed interim mayor of Nancy in 1944, and later honored by the Ministry of Reconstruction and Urbanism for his contributions to reconstruction efforts (1947).

After relocating his workshop to Maxéville, in the outskirts of Nancy in 1947, Prouvé undertook his most concerted efforts to produce prefabricated housing units on a mass scale. Still Prouvé remained committed to meeting the needs of different segments of society after the war, especially to the improvement of housing, schools, and other domestic infrastructure. The simple harmony and structural core of Prouvé’s “La Maison Les Jours Meilleurs” (1956), commissioned by Emmaeus founder Abbé Pierre, perhaps best exemplifies Prouvé’s lifelong commitment to the application of industrialized architecture to social need.,

Though Prouvé aimed to produce houses on the scale of Citroën’s production of cars, the vast majority of his prefabricated building prototypes were never widely adopted during his lifetime. Nevertheless, the exhibition testifies to the abiding power of Prouvé’s architectural systems among subsequent generations of architects.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a survey publication produced by the LUMA Foundation in collaboration with Phaidon Press. The book features two newly commissioned essays by architect, critic, theorist and Dean Emeritus of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Prof. Mark Wigley, and Philippe Trétiack, a Paris-based architecture critic and author, and includes a wealth of historical and archival material on the twelve constructions exhibited at LUMA Arles, and Prouvé’s oeuvre in general.

Educational activities for middle-school, high-school and university students will be held in tandem with the exhibition. More information will be released on our website www.luma-arles.org.
Otto Wagner
Post Otto Wagner. Von der Postsparkasse zur Postmoderne / From the Postal Savings Bank to Post-Modernism, Vienna [Wien], MAK, 30 may / 30 september 2018
Foster + Partners
Foster + Partners: Sustainable Communities | Shared Futures, Beijing, Tsinghua University Art Museum, 24 july / 7 october 2018
Frank Lloyd Wright
Tra paesaggi e storia. Wright e l'architettura organica allo Iuav, Venezia, Iuav, 26 june / 9 october 2018
La linea organica a nord-est, Venezia, Iuav, Tolentini, Gallerie del Rettorato
American Journey 1949-50 / Bruno Morassutti, Venezia, Iuav, Tolentini, Aula Magna
Ron Arad
Ron Arad: Yes to the Uncommon!, Weil-am-Rhein (Germany), Vitra Schaudepot, 8 june / 14 october 2018
Meili Peter Architekten
Meili, Peter, Berlin, Architektur Galerie Berlin, 7 september / 20 october 2018
M.C. Escher
Escher’s journey, Leeuwarden (Netherlands), Fries Museum, 28 april / 28 october 2018
Angelo Mangiarotti
Angelo Mangiarotti: Skilful Reflections, Paris, RBC Mobilier, 4 september / 23 november 2018
Renzo Piano
Renzo Piano. Progetti d'acqua, Venezia, Fondazione Emilio e Annabianca Vedova, Magazzini del Sale, 24 may / 25 november 2018Renzo Piano. Progetti d'acqua, Venezia, Magazzino del Sale
Renzo Piano
The Art of Making Building, London, Royal Academy of Arts, 15 september 2018 / 20 january 2019
Kolo Moser
Koloman Moser: Universal Artist between Gustav Klimt and Josef Hoffmann, Vienna [Wien], Mak Exhibition Hall, MAK, 19 december 2018 / 22 april 2019
 
 
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