This book the first in English on his work covers Mallet Stevens's career in its entirety, spanning architecture (shops and factories, private homes and apartment buildings, public buildings and offices), film sets, theory, urban design, furniture, and interior design.
Rob Mallet-Stevens (1886-1945) was one of the more controversial architects of the modern movement and, along with Le Corbusier, the most influential figure in French architecture between the wars. This book the first in English on his work covers Mallet Stevens's career in its entirety, spanning architecture (shops and factories, private homes and apartment buildings, public buildings and offices), film sets, theory, urban design, furniture, and interior design. It discusses the influence of the Viennese architect Josef Hoffman on Mallet-Stevens and explores his fascination with the Secessionist style.Confronted with the problem of imposing modern architecture on a reticent profession and public, Mallet-Stevens blended modern elements which were based on historic tradition into his architecture, while at the same time managing to integrate the avant-garde vocabulary of cubism and futurism into his designs.The book contains a formal analysis of Mallet-Stevens's most important projects and allows us to reevaluate his position toward the C.I.A.M., his rejection of standardization, his refusal to accept the traditional system of dividing land lots, and his insistence on the importance of detail in a buildings overall design and on the unity of architecture and the decorative arts in general. Jean François Pinchon is the author of numerous articles on nineteenth- and twentieth-century architecture. In 1986, he directed the exhibition held in national celebration of Rob Mallet-Stevens's centennial.
