Jean Prouvé’s Architecture, presented by Galerie Patrick Seguin This selection is a series of emblematic elements of architecture spanning Jean Prouvé’s oeuvre, comprising works from both Prouvé’s demountable houses and schools as well as examples of his iconic mur rideau (curtain wall) facades. Collectively they point to Prouvé’s avant-garde risk-taking as a constructor, and individually they reflect the diverse commissions and projects upon which Prouvé embarked particularly in France and Africa. The range of materials that compose the panels, including aluminum, metal, glass, and wood, reflects Prouvé’s mastery of them in his endless quest for simplicity and efficiency that rendered this aesthetic his own. Two of these panels feature the circular “hublot” windows, a markedly distinct motif synonymous with Prouvé. These elements illustrate Prouvé’s important contribution to French midcentury architecture that continues to have a resounding influence today. Arranged in a freestanding cube, the works can be appreciated from all sides, separately, and as an ensemble.

Gaetano Pesce’s Dujardin, presented by LAFFANOUR–Galerie Downtown In 1994 the talented Italian designer Gaetano Pesce was commissioned to create the architecture and the interior design for Dujardin children’s store in Knokke-Le-Zoute on the Belgian coastline. This opportunity allowed Pesce to combine utility with joyfulness, art with design, and aesthetics with functionality. The architect offers us the essence of his artistic research with a succession of colors, lines, shapes, and materials that are perfectly representative of his work, his sense of humor, his style, and innovative ideas. This playful, rich, and colorful architecture retains its usefulness, but is armed with a new function. It is no longer just about designing industrialized forms; for Pesce, design becomes the real support for an artistic, political, or social discourse.Always eager to shake up codes and common ideas, Pesce continues to surprise us almost twenty-five years after the creation of the Dujardin store.

Gaetano Pesce’s Sedia Portaritratti, presented by Salon 94 Design Sedia Portaritratti is a monumental installation conceived by Gaetano Pesce. The title of the work is a play on the Italian words for “drawing,” “portrait,” and “frame.” The four-meter-tall standing chair, covered in human caricature portraits, displays a variety in figuration—more than twenty distinct faces—that stands for the diversity and uniqueness of human nature. The enormous chair is an homage to both the collective and the individual. In an era in which everything adheres to a specific standard and there are so many global constants, uniqueness and individuality are what draws the future closer and what transforms the present into progress.

RDAI Architecture’s Dining Room Pavilion, presented by Galerie Philippe Gravier
Dining Room Pavilion is a complex micro- architecture, a cupola within a wooden trelliswork. The dome houses a warm and surprisingly inviting dining room. Its materials are natural and unprocessed, and with little furniture and few objects within, the pavilion’s atmosphere is almost ascetic, despite its classical Latin volumes. The lighting is diffused and enveloping. RDAI practices architecture, interior architecture, and design. Under the creative direction of Denis Montel, the agency Rena Dumas founded in 1972 is imbued with her legacy of rigor and elegance. RDAI Architecture was established in 2007 to focus on architectural projects. The creativity and versatility of RDAI have won the agency an international reputation. The firm’s recent work demonstrates the dexterity that has enabled it to conceive a diverse range of projects within a single sphere of ideas. Working on all scales, from entire buildings to interior environments and individual objects, RDAI’s distinguishing characteristic is its conceptual approach, which involves considering the whole in order to produce a rational and coherent project.