Vitra Prouvé Compas Direction Desk

Founded in 1950, Vitra is a Swiss company dedicated to improving the quality of homes, offices and public spaces through the power of design.

Vitra's furniture and concepts are developed in an intensive design process pairing engineering excellence with the creative genius of leading international designers. The result: interiors, furniture and accessories that are vibrant, functional, and inspiring.

Longevity of materials, construction and aesthetics are Vitra's leading principles, as demonstrated by their Classics – many in continuous production since the 1950s. Initiatives like the Vitra Campus architecture, the Vitra Design Museum, workshops, publications, collections and archives are all integral elements of Vitra's vision and culture.

Jean Prouvé, born in 1901 in Paris, was trained as a metal artisan under Emile Robert, Enghien und Szabo in Paris. In 1924 he opened his own workshop in Nancy and began to produce his first furnishings made of formed sheet steel in 1925. He was a founding member of the Union des Artistes Modernes (UAM) in 1930.

In the following year he established his own manufacturing firm, Les Ateliers Jean Prouvé. During the 1930s, the company produced numerous furniture designs, as well as some of the first prefabricated architectural elements, including components for the Maison du Peuple in Clichy (in collaboration with the architects Beaudoin and Lods), whose steel-and-glass structure attracted a great deal of attention.

Due to the scarcity of steel during the Second World War, Prouvé constructed wood furniture and developed simple houses made out of prefabricated parts. Active in the French Résistance, Prouvé was elected mayor of Nancy after the city was liberated. He designed and constructed residential buildings for the homeless. In 1947 he established the Maxéville factory, a facility of 25,000 square meters in which furnishings, prefabricated homes, and schools were produced by 200 employees. Prouvé left the company in 1953 and designed and built his own residence in 1954.

He taught as professor at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers (CNAM) from 1957-70. As chairman of the jury for the Centre Pompidou architectural competition in 1971, he played a major role in selecting the design of Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers.

Between 1980-84, Prouvé again turned his attention to the further development of his furniture designs. In many of his works, Jean Prouvé achieved the goal of uniting functional requirements, the honest use of materials and economical concerns with the complex demands of mass production. Beginning in 2002, in close collaboration with the Prouvé family, Vitra has devoted itself to the re-edition of numerous designs by this great constructeur.