In a joint venture with the Design Museum, Tate Modern is hosting an icon of modern architecture – the Maison Tropicale by French architect Jean Prouvé. It’s a stunning creation which to me looks like a cross between Le Corbusier’s cool rationalism and the tinniness of an American diner. Perhaps nowadays it doesn’t look too shocking, but in its day it must have been quite a stunning innovation. Even today it has lessons to teach – how to reconcile prefabrication with artistic integrity.

In fact Prouvé could probably only get away with his modernist vision because he was designing for colonial French West Africa – not for a French city which might have objected to its sparing lines and cheap materials.

Sadly, the house wasn’t in the end cheaper than using local materials and builders.

The plan was for huge numbers of these houses to be built, and the aluminiun sheets and folded sheet steel made it easy to produce in bulk. Few are left – and this one, formerly in Brazzaville, shows one of the reasons why – it’s riddled with bullet holes!

Visiting the Jean Prouvé house costs GBP 8.50; it’s open from 10-6 Sunday through Thursday, and 10-22 on Friday and Saturday.

Post from: The London Traveler