Robert Mallet-Stevens
Robert Mallet-Stevens
Centre Pompidou, Paris
27 April–29 August 2005
Robert Mallet-Stevens (1886-1945) has, in many
ways, been forgotten outside of Paris, and to those who have studied
his work, he is often described as a relatively unimportant architect
in comparison with Le Corbusier and other modernists. At the Pompidou
Centre, in summer 2005, his work was resurrected from the dust and
given the platform to be criticised afresh. Sixty years after his
death at the end of World War Two, he has finally been given a wider
audience.
Very much an Art Deco designer, Mallet-Stevens exhibited
in the 1925 International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial
Arts in Paris - he designed film sets and grand interiors as well
as buildings. The main attraction of this exhibition are his illustrations,
but his colour drawings and simple, black and white diagrams are
also featured. His 'Ideal City' is particularly interesting and
aesthetically attractive: the collection of individual buildings
includes a school and a hospital, among other expected features.
Although they are pretty rather than technical, the drawings are
worth seeing, if not for their architectural significance, then
for their decorative qualities. As Tamara de Lempicka's work was
criticised for being too stylish at the expense of substance during
a recent retrospective of her work in London, so Mallet-Stevens
appears to have made his ideal city impractical. Indeed, the structures
are merely hypothetical and wishful in conception - a deeper analysis
of their practicality would ruin the fantasy. Against the backdrop
of the mass destruction of war, however, it may have been better
if Mallet-Stevens had developed the technical insight to parallel
his stylish experimentation. There is always a regret, when viewing
fantastic designs, that they would be impossible to realise.
However, Mallet-Stevens did not only dream of buildings. Although
the 'Ideal City' was not constructed from the debris of war, other
buildings materialised from his commissions from wealthy patrons.
The exhibition shows the original drawings, models and actual buildings
of the Villa Noailles (1923-1928), specified by the aristocratic
Charles and Marie-Laure de Noailles to be, 'A little house, interesting
to live in, to take advantage of the sun.' After a series of enlargements
and alterations, it later became a backdrop for Man Ray's surrealist
film, 'Les Mystères du Château de Dé'. The small,
modest house eventually became a large villa, 2,000 square metres
in size, with a studio, swimming pool, a high, stained glass ceiling,
squash court and 60 bedrooms. Other elaborate buildings designed
by Mallet-Stevens are Villa Poiret (1921-1923), home of the great
couturier Paul Poiret, as well as Villa Cavrois (1929-1932), a synthesis
of the modernist conceptions of the European avant-garde. Rue Mallet-Stevens
(1926-1934) is also featured, though it would make sense to go and
see the actual buildings in Paris, in the 16th arrondissement, and
Barillet House and Studio, nearby, in the 15th arrondissement.
The drawings are beautiful, and rather mesmerising; particularly
the 'Ideal City', which is quintessential escapism. The rest of
the exhibition is interesting in that the architectural processes
are well presented and there is proof that fantastic buildings can
be materialised after all, even if a uniformly decorative city is
unlikely. However, to see a city that is more realistic in its juxtaposition
of clashing styles and approaches to architecture, and so fantastic
that it is beyond the limits of a single imagination, you need only
walk out of the Pompidou and explore Paris itself.
Christiana SC Spens
