Jean Prouvé (1901-1984) was one of the most outstanding design engineers of the 20th century. His work is a remarkable combination of creative imagination, technical skill and visionary enterprise. The first of Birkhäuser s 4-volume edition of Prouvé s Complete Works covers the period between 1917 and 1933 including the first metalwork objects (staircase railings, lamps), the first standardised building products (windows, doors, movable partitions), the first furniture in moulded steel and the first building projects to use folded sheet metal, such as operating theatres in Lyon s Hôpital Grange Blanche, as well as the text of numerous conversations with Jean Prouvé.

"Peter Sulzer s work is an admirable catalogue raisonné of the works of Jean Prouvé... He has made a remarkable synthesis from a variety of sources, rigorously organised on the page and easily readable" (commendation on the award of the French Briey Prize for an architectural book).

Photographs by: Erika Sulzer-Kleinemeier