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 steel structural poles were filled with polymeric foam. The facade panels where either solid or pierced with doors and windows that were framed with wood.
After SIRH successfully completed a few prototypes, including two experimental houses in Nancy, the company made ambitious plans to build hundreds of homes. In order to get subsides for research and development from the government, the SIRH was required to build a prototype building tested the large scale possibilities of the SIRH process for community housing. Upon completion, the company planned to use the prototype structure as the SIRH headquarters.
In 1973, construction began on the experimental building in Ludres, France. All parts of the eight storey, sixty unit structure were produced at the factory and assembled on site by a team of only three to four people. Each module was lifted up on site by crane, stacked and then bolted together. Poles provided additional support between modules and two concrete towers were constructed to house circulation and provided bracing for the entire building.
Shortly before the completion of the SIRH building in 1974, the company suddenly went bankrupt and all construction came to a halt. It has been speculated that the innovative nature of the SIRH process was seen as a threat to other companies and this may have lead to the company’s demise.
The building has remained abandoned ever since.
Public and institutional interest of the ideas behind the experimental process and building of SIRH has grown exponentially since the death of Claude Prouvé in January 2012 and the destruction of the SIRH building this past March. Thankfully, the industrial site owner who led the demolition surrendered to activists’ demands and kindly donated one of the building modules to the “Musée de l’Histoire du Fer”, which is run by the Communauté Urbaine du Grand Nancy.
Additionally, the Pompidou Centre in Paris retains drawings and two models of the project in its collections. Moreover, a doctoral thesis is being drafted by architect Jean-Jacqu