PIERRE REVIEW

Once honoured by former French president Nicolas Sarkozy as “he who made design an art”, late French designer Pierre Paulin as well as the breadth of his creations are never to be forgotten

Pierre Paulin outfitted Elysée Palace for Georges Pompidou; designed all the furniture for the official office of François Mitterrand, and renovated the dining room for Jacques Chirac. He founded design firm ADSA, working on projects for huge corporations including Air France and modernising railway stations like Gare de Lyon and Gare de Versailles Rive Gauche. But history’s memory is at times selective. What is more firmly entrenched in the mind of the people are his more radical creations (some unforgettably named after foodstuff like pumpkin) – that and the countless monumental events that have taken place in the middle of the last century. The 1950s were better known to be the age of many changes. The horrendous Second World War which had shattered over hundred millions of homes had finally come to an end. And the subsequent post-war boom naturally brought massive transformation to the architectural and interior design front as people sought to reconstruct a conducive living place again. To many, it was time to be out with the old as they heralded the new. To Pierre Paulin himself, it would seem that the same decade had also marked many turning points on many personal levels. Talking about heralding the ‘new’, the same word could probably be used to safely and aptly describe Paulin’s designs that have appeared avant-garde to the public then. During a period when people looked to warmer and softer furniture, quite a number of renowned designers including the Eameses, Gio Ponti, Harry Bertoia, Arne Jacobsen and Eero Saarinen started to lead