Ensemble Maternelle, 1951
At the beginning of the 1950 school year, Steph Simon brought the Ateliers Jean Prouvé up to date on changing demands for school furniture and the new Ministry of Education recommendations regarding separate tables and stackable chairs that kindergarten pupils could move about themselves. Returning to a tube and bent steel system first used for a two-seater school desk in 1935, Jean Prouvé designed a wood and metal set for children aged 3 to 5. Approved early in 1951, the prototype was shown the same year at the Salon des arts ménagers in Paris, then at the Milan Triennial. The table and chair (the latter could be fitted with armrests) had a matching base whose “portal frame” structure comprised a large-diameter (50 mm) tube to which were welded two triangular-section bent steel legs.1 Connected by a brace, the front legs were of curved tube. Following one of Prouvé’s favorite procedures, this system was immediately extended to five different sizes and several variants2 and adapted to meet other markets: a school set for highschool students and even adults, as within the university market;3 stackable chairs; and the Conférence chair (no. 355) for offices. In 1953, work on an all-aluminum version of these models led to the making of a number of prototypes.
1. An initial (prototype) version had open V-section legs. Closed-section legs were used on the manufactured model.
2. Height was from 55 to 75 cm, with a number of variants: single or double demountable table, with or without aluminum compartment.
3. Called the Ensemble Cité for the occasion, it was proposed in 1951 at the initial call for tenders for equipping of rooms in the Cité Universitaire in Antony, then for similar competitions—but without ever being mass-produced.