Jean Prouvé house finds permanent London home in Ladbroke Hall garden
Carpenters Workshop Gallery has unveiled a model of the Jean Prouvé-designed 6x6 demountable house in a London garden created by landscape designer Luciano Giubbilei.
Maison Démountable will be a permanent fixture of the publicly accessible garden at Ladbroke Hall, the west London arts venue that Carpenters Workshop Gallery moved into in 2023.
It forms the centrepiece of a 1,150-square-metre "hidden oasis" envisioned by Giubbilei, a Tuscan-born, London-based designer who won the Chelsea Flower Show in 2014.
The house is an early model of the structure that the late French architect Prouvé developed to accommodate people made homeless at the end of the second world war.
Ateliers Jean Prouvé was commissioned to deliver 800 of the 6x6 demountable houses to be installed in Lorraine and the Franche-Comté regions of France.
The design, which became an influential example of prefabricated architecture, features a patented axial portal frame that supports a modular system of wall and floor panels.
The name, 6x6, refers to the dimensions of the 36-square-metre floorplate, which provided three rooms.
"The earlier models of Prouvé's 'demountable buildings', including Maison Démountable, exemplify the initial stages of his soon-to-be revolutionary innovation in prefabricated housing," said Carpenters Workshop Gallery.
"The structure is simple, Prouvé and his studio reduced the house to its most essential qualities and included his trademark portal frame system."
Maison Démountable has been completely restored, with the addition of a two-by-six-metre porch.
New windows have been added to the timber walls, while underfloor heating has been installed under the revived parquet floors.
"These restorations were all done to elevate the level of comfort of the structure, without changing its overall design or appearance," added Carpenters Workshop Gallery.
The house stands beside the dining terrace of newly opened restaurant Pollini, which offers outdoor seating for 50 diners. The structure can also serve as a private dining room for up to 18 people.
For the rest of the garden, Giubbilei has applied Italian design principles to create a landscape filled with hydrangeas, maple trees and bamboo.
The design grew out of a suggestion from Carpenters Workshop Gallery co-founder Loïc Le Gaillard that it would be a place where he could play hide-and-seek with his children.
The garden was unveiled this week, coinciding with the launch of three new exhibitions at the collectible design gallery.
These include a group show titled Monumental, new works by Australian designer Charles Trevelyan and the latest iteration of the Windy Chair series by British artist Yinka Shonibare.
The London base of Carpenters Workshop Gallery, which also has venues in New York, Los Angeles and Paris, relocated to Ladbroke Hall in 2023.
Its launch show featured cast-bronze furniture by architect David Adjaye, while recent exhibitions included furniture by the late American artist and designer Wendell Castle.
The photography is by David Brook courtesy of Carpenters Workshop Gallery.
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