Less known to the public than his contemporaries Charles Eames and Marcel Breuer, Jean Prouvé has only recently been acknowledged as one of the most influential European designers of the 20th century. Prouvé’s output, ranging from household furnishings to industrial buildings and residential homes, is notable for his signature use of industrial metals like sheet steel and aluminum.


The exhibition is organized around a building Prouvé constructed in 1951 as a prototype of inexpensive, readily assembled housing that could be easily transported to France’s African colonies. Fabricated in Prouvé’s French workshops, the Tropical House—as it is known—was carried in the cargo hold of an Air France plane to Africa. It was erected in the town of Brazzaville and remained there for 50 years. In 1999, retired commodities trader, rare car collector and Yale alumnus Robert M. Rubin had the Tropical House disassembled, packed up and shipped to France, where it was painstakingly restored.


This is the first public display of the house outside France. A 400-square-foot end section of the house – approximately one-fourth of the entire structure — will be erected inside the gallery of the A&A building. The open end of the displayed section will face into the main exhibition space. The exhibition will include photographs by Mark Lyon, plans, artifacts and a short film documenting the Tropical House from its return to France and the completion of its restoration near Paris last summer. Related Prouvé objects, such as furniture made for export to the tropics, will also be included.

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