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Flavigny bed, 1945

Flavigny no. 452 bed, 1951.

Flavigny no. 452 bed, 1951. © Galerie Patrick Seguin.

Flavigny LF 11 bed, 1946. View in the workshop, ca. 1948.

Flavigny LF 11 bed, 1946. View in the workshop, ca. 1948. © Fonds Jean Prouvé. Centre Pompidou – MNAM/CCI-Bibliothèque Kandinsky-Dist. RMN-Grand Palais.

Prototype Métropole house presented by Ateliers Jean Prouvé in the Housing section of the Salon des Arts Ménagers, Paris, 1950 (architect H. Prouvé, 1949). Children’s bedroom with Flavigny beds and prototype single-seater desk.

Prototype Métropole house presented by Ateliers Jean Prouvé in the Housing section of the Salon des Arts Ménagers, Paris, 1950 (architect H. Prouvé, 1949). Children’s bedroom with Flavigny beds and prototype single-seater desk. © Fonds Jean Prouvé. Centre Pompidou – MNAM/CCI-Bibliothèque Kandinsky-Dist. RMN-Grand Palais.

Dollander Villa, Saint-Clair, Var (architect H. Prouvé, 1949–1951). Partial view of the living room with a Triennale de Milan model table and a Flavigny LF 11 bed.

Dollander Villa, Saint-Clair, Var (architect H. Prouvé, 1949–1951). Partial view of the living room with a Triennale de Milan model table and a Flavigny LF 11 bed. © Collection privée.

Salon des Arts Ménagers home show, Housing section, Paris, 1953. The Ateliers Jean Prouvé stand. Coque house furnished with a Flavigny bed, a CB 22 chair, and a single-seater desk.

Salon des Arts Ménagers home show, Housing section, Paris, 1953. The Ateliers Jean Prouvé stand. Coque house furnished with a Flavigny bed, a CB 22 chair, and a single-seater desk. © Fonds Jean Prouvé. Centre Pompidou – MNAM/CCI-Bibliothèque Kandinsky-Dist. RMN-Grand Palais.

Flavigny no. 454 bed, 1951. Provenance: immeuble Air France, Brazzaville.

Flavigny no. 454 bed, 1951. Provenance: immeuble Air France, Brazzaville. © Galerie Patrick Seguin.

Flavigny bed, 1945

The Flavigny bed (with a metal frame with tapered steel legs, notched to receive the frame and extending upwards to support the wooden headboard)1 was among the numerous bed designs from the 1930s that did not go into production immediately. The shortage of metal during the War led to a version with solid wood side members and legs, and such a model was proposed to a major regional store with a view to sales for home use. In 1945, beds of this type, made of metal and wood, were provided for the wards in a Preventorium at Flavigny, near Nancy; whence the name of the new model, mass produced from 1947 onwards. The profiled steel frame of the slatted mattress base was mounted on four tapered legs, also of bent steel, which supported the wooden head and foot panels. In 1951, 110 examples of the Flavigny bed were made in three widths (80, 90, and 140 cm), one of them no. 454— a double-bed version. A variant from the same year was the Coloniale which combined cast aluminum legs with a steel frame and wooden panels. With only slight modifications to certain details—notably a straighter profile for the side members, and replacement of the mattress base slats with equalizing springs—the Flavigny bed was made until 1953.2

1. “Metal bed no. 4812”, 1935 (see Sulzer, vol. 1, no. 538).
2. From 1954 onwards only the SCAL model was marketed. However the name Flavigny was wrongly applied to a variant of the SCAL bed with wooden panels, on Steph Simon presentation sheets (“Les lits Jean Prouvé. Édition Steph Simon”, ca. 1960).