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BCC table with Pierre Jeanneret, 1942

BCC table, prototype created in collaboration with Pierre Jeanneret, 1942.

BCC table, prototype created in collaboration with Pierre Jeanneret, 1942. © Galerie Patrick Seguin.

BCC table, created in collaboration with Pierre Jeanneret, 1942. Prototype in the workshop.

BCC table, created in collaboration with Pierre Jeanneret, 1942. Prototype in the workshop. © Collection privée.

Wood table, ca. 1942. Prototype.

Wood table, ca. 1942. Prototype. © Galerie Patrick Seguin.

Wood table, ca. 1942. Prototype. Detail of the assemblage of the legs and the table-top with a piece of bent sheet metal.

Wood table, ca. 1942. Prototype. Detail of the assemblage of the legs and the table-top with a piece of bent sheet metal. © Galerie Patrick Seguin.

BCC table with Pierre Jeanneret, 1942

This wood and metal table illustrates the collaboration between Jean Prouvé, Pierre Jeanneret, and the Vauconsant firm, makers of the wooden components. It seems to fit with the Ateliers Jean Prouvé plan for a “table base for the BCC (Bureau Central de Construction)” in June 1942.1 At this time, Prouvé was already in consultation with the BCC2 in Grenoble regarding interior design projects, among them the staff facilities at the Solvay chemical plant at Dombasle-sur-Meurthe, near Nancy. The proposed items of furniture were mostly current models from the Ateliers Jean Prouvé, with others taken from the BCC catalogue. Jean Prouvé took advantage of the project to come up with new models, too, some of them—such as the metal-base dining table with crossmember—derived from earlier designs. This prototype combined aspects of existing models characteristic of the Ateliers Jean Prouvé—which would be further developed later on: the diagonally positioned, slanted, triangular legs; the metal brackets holding up the tabletop—with such new components as the wooden crossmember with rounded ends. The emphasis on wood was due to the difficulty of obtaining metal, the latter being reserved for mountings; here bent steel was used instead. This system is also to be found in a similar table model, most likely produced during the War.

1. See Catherine Coley, Jean Prouvé, Pierre Jeanneret, Maison démontable BCC, Paris, Galerie Patrick Seguin, 2014.
2. Jean Prouvé was already working with the BCC (Georges Blanchon, Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand) on other projects, notably the SCAL factory, at Issoire. A strong collaboration between Prouvé and Jeanneret continued throughout the War.