Hasta La Ideas

In this series, Matthew Sullivan (AQQ Design) highlights some designers that you should know, but might not. Previously, he looked at the work of Gae Aulenti.

Robert Mallet-Stevens: Born in Paris, 1886. Died in Paris, 1945.

“Architecture is an art which is basically geometrical. The cube is the basis of architecture because the right angle is necessary because the steps of a staircase consist of vertical and horizontal planes and the corners of rooms are nearly always right angles. We need right angles.” —Robert Mallet-Stevens, “Architecture and Geometry,” 1924

Robert Mallet-Stevens was a pioneering modernist who designed architecture, interiors, film sets and furniture. He is considered one of the most influential French architects of the first half of the last century—for many, slightly below Le Corbusier. His relative obscurity is due in part to the poor timing of his death. As a 2005 Domus article pointed out, Mallet-Stevens died “just before major postwar construction began to take place, not in time to leave behind a theoretical work to assure his place in the archives.” In addition, his focus was less universal than Le Corbusier’s. Mallet-Stevens was personally involved in all manner of architectural detail. Because of this multifaceted involvement, he created design and architecture of nuanced chicness. His work did not jettison the richness of the Vienna Succession and the Wiener Werkstätte—but Mallet-Stevens had one foot aimed directly at the super-reductionist future of full-blown modernism.

Like many great designers, Mallet-Stevens was a shrewd but tolerant synthesizer, bringing together those artists and artisans he felt were superlative. For the home of the Vicomte de Noailles, he yoked the likes of Eileen Gray, Pierre Chareau and Theo van Doesberg (in retrospect, a pretty stunning roster). Before the First World War, he created a magazine whose board included such diverse talents as the composer Claude Debussy and the painter Maurice Denis; and in 1929 he founded the Union des Artistes Modernes, which included such standard-bearers as Sonia Delauney, René Herbst, Charlotte Perriand, Jean Prouvé, Pierre Guariche and Mathieu Matégot.

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