Robert Mallet Stevens

Robert Mallet-Stevens 

(March 24, 1886 - February 8, 1945)

A French architect and designer. Along with Le Corbusier he is widely regarded as the most influential figure in French architecture in the period between the two World Wars. 

Mallet-Stevens was born in Paris in a house called Maison-Laffitte (designed by Francois Mansart in the 17th century). His father and his grandfather were art collectors in Paris and Brussels. 

He received his formal training at the École Speciale d'Architecture in Paris, during which he wrote Guerande about relationships between the different forms of art. 

In 1924 he published a magazine called La Gazette Des 7 Arts and at the same time with the help of Ricciotto Canudo founded the Club des amis du 7ème art. 

A Paris street in the 16th arrondissement, Rue Mallet-Stevens, was built by him in the 1920s and has on it six houses designed by him.

In addition to designing shops, factories, a fire station in Paris, apartment buildings, private homes, and interiors, he was one of the first architects to show an interest in cinema. He designed film sets and his design for Marcel L'Herbier's silent film L'Inhumaine (1924) is considered a masterpiece.

 

Robert Mallet-Stevens has, in many ways, been forgotten outside of Paris, and to those who have studied his work, he is often described as a relatively unimportant architect in comparison with Le Corbusier and other modernists. At the Pompidou Centre, in summer 2005, his work was resurrected from the dust and given the platform to be criticised afresh. Sixty years after his death at the end of World War Two, he has finally been given a wider audience.

 

Examples of the work of  Robert Mallet Stevens.

Hôtel Martel, 10 rue Mallet-Stevens, Paris.

 

 

 

Fall-Front Cabinet Desk by Robert Mallet Stevens.

Lacquered wood and nickel plated steel, fours drawers with original keys.

 

Study room. Da: Rèpertoire du Goùt Moderne, 1929.