Directed by Jean-Marc Leuwen, Hubert Damisch and Stanislas Faure, 1975. Duration: 61'21". © INA.
Jean Prouvé: From 1900 … from after the War until 1950, so in collaboration with the architects, I think that we prepared for today’s architecture. It wasn’t our aim, we did it because the organisation was such that we couldn’t avoid it. We imagined buildings, a central core in concrete. We imagined industrialisation that set a precedent. What worried us, not just me but my colleagues at the time, was that we didn’t recognise ourselves in the built projects. This made us think. It would seem that we set the tone, and that the results today present themselves much more, in the way of modernism for exoneration.
Journalist: You could say a kind of dressing
JP: That’s it, we are modern
Journalist: At least we give the air of being modern …
JP: That’s it … you are either modern or you aren’t modern, it’s better to be modern because when you are not modern you are criticised and it feels like, I say it again, it is a mind exculpation.