By way of an addendum to our 5 New Design Exhibitions for November 2015 post, the Kaiserslautern University of Technology's Architecture Gallery are hosting "Jean Prouvé - vom System zum Haus" - "Jean Prouvé - from system to house" - in which the results of a semester project exploring the construction systems of Jean Prouvé are being presented.
Although arguably best known for his furniture designs, a large part of Jean Prouvé's career and energy was spent developing, and indeed manufacturing, temporary housing systems for emergency situations and for those in need of secure temporary accommodation.
A theme which is of course as relevant and pressing today as it was in the years immediately following World War II when Jean Prouvé was actively concerning himself with the subject.
Clearly for temporary and emergency accommodation systems are the best: constructions composed from pre-fabricated standard elements which can be effortlessly transported, assembled, disassembled, transported, assembled, disassembled ad nauseam ad infinitum.
And with projects such as the Maison Tropicale, the Ferembal house or his various demountable house projects Jean Prouvé beautifully demonstrates how such could be achieved. Yes, in context of today's materials the Prouvé works can appear clunky, chunky and anything but practical, but in the underlying principles they remain as relevant as ever.
Today you're more likely to find Prouvé's systems on sale for silly money at events such as Design Miami Basel than in actual use; however, and as we all know, there is no need to continually invent new systems, more often than not existing systems are fine, they just need to be adapted to meet contemporary standards, contemporary materials and contemporary production techniques.
And if we've understood the project correctly that is in effect what the TU Kaiserslautern students were tasked with.
We've not seen the Kaiserslautern exhibition, and as such cannot comment on the results and conclusions of the students explorations; however as a subject Jean Prouvé's construction research is one that everyone with an interest in solving contemporary problems really should be concerning themselves with, and as such vom System zum Haus sounds like an exhibition well worth visiting.
Jean Prouvé – vom System zum Haus runs at the Architekturgalerie Kaiserslautern, Rosenstrasse 2, 67655 Kaiserslautern until Sunday November 29th
Full details, including opening times, can be found at http://architekturgalerie.org/
