Demountable school, Bouqueval and Vantoux, 1950
From the mid 1940s, Jean Prouvé threw himself into working on the permanent reconstruction programme undertaken by the French state to provide housing and infrastructure—notably schools. In 1949, the Ateliers Jean Prouvé took part in a Ministry of Education competition open to architect/constructor teams. The brief was for a single-classroom, mass-producible rural school with teacher accommodation, which could easily and quickly be assembled on any kind of site. Given the efficiency of his Maxéville workshop, Jean Prouvé saw this brief as the chance to engage in the mass production of inexpensive buildings with a wide range of possible applications. This led him to refine an earlier system which had already proved itself:1 a metal structure using axial portal frames, combined with different types of aluminum-sheathed facade panels. Prouvé’s architect brother Henri developed the system’s school variant—a classroom, workshop and covered play area all opening onto the exterior and protected by a gallery—as well as adjoining accommodation for the teacher, based on the Métropole model. The Prouvé team emerged as one of the winners and in May 1950 was commissioned by the State to produce two school+accomodation prototypes; one of these was assembled in Bouqueval, outside Paris, and the other at Vantoux, near Metz. Despite the sucess of the demonstration, these two schools were to be the only examples of the substantial series so hoped for by Jean Prouvé.2 After 50 years of service, extending the experimental process faithful to the spirit in which they had been designed, these buildings have been given a new life and affirm both the procedure’s relevance today and its adaptability. Architect Jean Nouvel has given his own intepretation to the Bouqueval school:3 combining current procedures with the original building system, he provides the building with functionalities linked to a different usage, while restoring characteristics of the system designed by Jean Prouvé, such as demountability and mobility. Also, by creating a new play on transparencies, he highlights the portal frame structure, where function becomes sculpture.
1. See Jean Prouvé, Métropole Demountable House, Paris, Galerie Patrick Seguin, 2016.
12. Shortly afterwards he developed a new shell-type building system adapted for schools, which met with wider success.
13. Ateliers Jean Nouvel-HW architecture.