Jean Prouve Complete Works Volume 1: 1917-1933

Jean Prouvé (1901-1984) was one of the most outstanding con-structors of this century. His work is a remarkable combination of creative imagination, technical skill and forward-looking enterprise.

The first of the four volumes of this Catalogue of Jean Prouvé's work covers the creative phase from 1917 to 1933. First metalwork: lamps, grills, gates; metalwork and metal fittings for the architects Emile and Jacques André, Jean Bourgon, Fernand César, Paul Charbonnier, Pierre Le Bourgeois, etc.; centre lights, ceiling lights, wall-lights and light-diffusers; first objects in polished stainless steel; work for the architect Robert Mallet-Stevens; first furniture; show-cases; staircase railings; lift protection grills; lift cages in steel sheet, in aluminium and in stainless steel; glazed doors; first patents: doors in curved sheet steel and doors mounted on tubing; window wall for the Citroën showroom and garage; sash windows; patented movable partitions; operating theatres carried out at the Hôpital Granche Blanche in Lyons, architect Tony Garnier; work carried out at the former Palais du Gouvernement Général inAlgiers; sliding windows, pivot windows, etc.; furniture for the Cité Universitaire in Nancy; sanatorium furniture; first façade in stainless steel; first project for a building entirely in folded sheet metal: the Citroën coach station at La Villette.

The author, Peter Sulzer, former Professor of Architecture at the University of Stuttgart, has been working for more than fifteen years on archiving the works of Jean Prouvé. He has had frequent contact with Jean Prouvé and his colleagues and collaborators, has inspec-ted most of the works, and has looked at most of the documents in the Jean Prouvé Collection in Nancy.