Stool no. 306, 1951
Jean Prouvé’s first plans for stools in 1935 involved high seats with tapering welded pressed steel legs connected by one or two circular tubing footrests.1 A variant can be found in the Ateliers Jean Prouvé advertising catalogue for 1949–1950. Another, doubtless later model comprised a base with four slanting, pressed steel triangular legs, a footrest and a solid-wood seat. This version was notably used for the bar in the canteen at the Marcoule’s Centre d’Études Atomiques (nuclear studies center) in 1954. In 1952 the Ateliers Jean Prouvé made two prototypes for low stools with “standard” triangular legs. One of them combined the pressed aluminum seat created in 1950 for the lecture hall “Bergères” with three tapered legs welded to a single steel plate attached to the underside of the seat with tubes. This no. 306 stool found no takers: originally designed for the lobby of the Maison du Mexique at the Cité Internationale Universitaire in Paris,2 it was ultimately replaced there by stool no. 307, with a pressed aluminum seat and four tubular legs.
1. Stool designs for the French Post Office (1935), M. Anxionnat (1942), the Cité Universitaire in Nancy (1943), and the Braun company in Mulhouse (1945).
2. Architect J.-L. Medellin, internal layout by Charlotte Perriand, 1953.