Mid-March brought the destruction of an important 1970s building that symbolized the experimental nature of industrialized housing that became popular after World War II as an effort to meet the economic demands of reconstruction. Known as the “experimental building of SIRH”, the eight storey abandoned structure was created by sixty prefabricated modules that served as a prototype for the SIRH Process – a construction process that experimented with the idea of prefabricating flexible standard living cells that could be easily assembled on site in a unlimited amount of configurations to provide for affordable individual or collective dwellings. This process was designed by French architect Claude Prouvé – son of the illustrious French architect, designer and metal worker Jean Prouvé, who is widely known for successfully and beautifully transferring manufacturing technology from industry to architecture.
The experimental building of SIRH, along with many other 1960s and 1970s structures, remains largely under-explored. Due to a spontaneous mobilization of architects, students and researchers in January 2012, the SIRH building has been documented and photographed in detail before it was demolished in March. Starting Thursday, June 7th, the Maison de l’architecture Lorraine will be hosting a fascinating exhibition that will display this documentation and explore the innovative process and prototypes of Claude Prouvé.
Continue reading after the break to learn more!
As the son of the famous self-taught architect Jean Prouvé (1901-1984), Claude Prouvé (1929-2012) was immersed in the culture of architecture at a very early age. He gained his first practical experience with construction when he helped his father build their family home in 1954. Following in his father’s footsteps, Claude Prouvé inherited a method of work that was based on experimentation and practice. This allowed him to acquire great experience as a manufacture.
In 1965, Claude Prouvé took on his father’s interest in the industrial production of housing and decided to devote his thesis subject to the topic in order to obtain his degree in architecture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Nancy. The official title of his degree was “etude théorique pour le développement d’un habitat industrialisé évolutif “, meaning the “theoretical study for the development of a scalable industrialized habitat.” It was then that Claude Prouvé began to design what is now known as the SIRH process.
During this time, an engineer by the name of Georges Quentin was working as a high-ranking office worker of the coalmine company Houillères du Bassin de Lorraine (HBL). He was asked by HBL to study the possibility of shifting the company’s focus to the industrialized housing industry. With the dwindling activity in Lorraine’s exploitation of coal led this company to explore this opportunity. Logically, Georges Quentin contacted Jean Prouvé who was a widely known specialist in industrialized architecture. However, Jean Prouvé was engaged in too many other projects at this time and decided to introduce his son Claude to Georges Quentin.
In 1969, Claude Prouvé and Georges Quentin, along with Jean Prouvé as the manufacture, established Société Industrielle de Recherche et de Réalisation de l’Habitat (SIRH) in an effort to further research Claude Prouvé’s thesis. The process he created provided a system that allowed for great flexibility in construction and design by fabricating a scalable standard living cell that could be quickly mass produced and easily combined with other cells to create an unlimited amount of housing configurations. Considering Claude Prouvé’s research was already very well thought-out, the company was able to promptly begin testing the design by constructing prototypes.
The standard module measured 3.8 meters (length) x 3.8 meters (width) x 2.5 meters (floor to ceiling height). The frame was made of stainless steel while the ceiling and the floor, which are the same component, were made of galvanized steel. Sheet aluminum covered the inside of the components and the frames s