PAD London 2015

For PAD London 2015, Galerie Pascal Cuisinier is offered a contemporary perspective on a 1955 French apartment.

After the Second World War, emergency procedures were put in place in France to quickly rehouse a large part of the population, thereby calling on the expertise of Jean Prouvé, Marcel Gascoin and René Gabriel.

In parallel with this, the latter formed the new generation of interior designers at the prestigious École Nationale des Arts Décoratifs. Having graduated in the early 1950s, the best of them created new types of apartments, representative of a modern lifestyle in keeping with the legendary years of the “glorious thirties”.

They redesigned the space, light, and the function of the apartment, it was a source of new lifestyles. They invented modern furniture that was simple and elegant, exceptional lighting and seating, which, thanks to new technical procedures, was to revolutionise the aesthetics and comfort of all seating in the second half of the 20thcentury.

This is the apartment presented by Pascal Cuisinier at PAD London 2015, but in its contemporary version, as collectors reinterpret it today.

This is a lounge/dining room, which was in vogue during this period, whose rooms, designed for mass production, were conceived in order to create a cohesive space, as though it had been made to measure by an interior designer. The lines are simple and light, and the harmonious materials – Elm, lacquered metal, woollen fabrics – with ultra sophisticated proportions. The colours used are neutral and the light is soft, produced from a large number of indirect and reflected sources. It is this minimalism that characterises this style “à la française”: refined, restrained and direct.