Jean Nouvel was born in Fumel in 1945 and studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris. A key protagonist of intellectual debate in France regarding architecture, he was a founding member of Mars 1976 and Syndicat de l’Architecture. The Musée du Quai Branly, and the Fondation Cartier in Paris, the congress center in Luzern, The Agbar tower in Barcelona, the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis more recently the Sofitel hotel in Vienna and in a next future the Louvre in Abu Dhabi and the Philarmonia in Paris are part of his many buildings.
His distinctions include the Aga Khan Award for Architecture for the Institut du Monde Arabe (1989), the Wolf Prize in Arts (2005) and the Pritzker Prize (2008). Many exhibitions of his work have been held all over the word from NY to Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo, apart from the restrospective in Centre Pompidou in 2001. The Table au Km and Boîte à outils are the first limited editions to be produced.
The key word of my work is elementariness. I look primarily for the essence of things; I would like to invent archetypes.
Jean Nouvel
Like many of his modernist predecessors who worked across related disciplines, Nouvel describes himself as an architect who also makes design. His non-architectural products derive from his architectural commissions or from alternative visions that correspond to his building design but which are linked to specific use. Regardless of the scale of the object or the architecture, Nouvel employs the same rigorous approach, imbuing the objects and accoutrements of everyday life with a lyricism that is striking and emotive yet austere and utilitarian.
La Table au Km (2008-2011) is a narrow (75cm) wooden table, made to measure, with a minimum length of 4m. (The example exhibited here measures 6m 35, according to the dimensions of the gallery). The extraordinary proportions of the table are determined by a constructive principle whereby its span is miraculously supported within the thickness of the material itself, which is a lamination of oak and hornbeam. Thus in theory the length of the table is limitless.
Boîte à outils (1987-2011) is a storage system based on the staple toolbox that can be found in every household. Nouvel has studied and reinterpreted this utilitarian container, streamlining it while imbuing it with additional functions and attributes.
In 1995 Nouvel created the Jean Nouvel Design Agency (JND), to develop design and interior architecture projects in parallel with the architectural practice Ateliers Jean Nouvel. Several series of furniture and industrial objects have been developed and commercialized from the famous Less collection with Unifor, coffee services for Alessi, light fittings for Troll, partitioning systems for Methis, sits for Roset, and tables and lamps for Pallucco.
The Table au Km is fabricated in Italy by Unifor, and the Boite à Outils is made in France by Decayeux.
Jean Nouvel: Furniture at the Gagosian Gallery Paris
Wednesday 30 March – Saturday 21 May 2011
