Marcel Gascoin, Drawer shelf "ET", France 1950

Marcel Gascoin (1907-1986), “TC” table in light oak, ARHEC edition, France 1950. Father of Rationalism and major player in French Reconstruction, Marcel Gascoin designs quality furni...

Old edition of the B17b library in French Elm by Pierre Chapo, France 60'. Presented at the Salon des Arts Ménagers in 1967, this bookcase breaks the rules by placing the supports ab...

Two-drawer shelf by Marcel Gascoin, ARHEC, 1947 Two-drawer Shelf created by Marcel Gascoin edited by ARHEC in 1947. This shelf is made from Oak wood. Presented in the UAM pavilion during the 1937 International Exhibition, the wall shelves on racks were used extensively by Marcel Gascoin. Playing on their freedom of arrangement, he invented modular storage walls where single, double or drawer shelves could be placed, as well as glass elements or a wall desk. The combination on racks allows for height adjustment; it gives the possibility (before consumer loans were commonplace) to equip themselves with successive purchases. (extract from "Marcel Gascoin, design utile" 2011) Marcel Gascoin was born in Le Havre, in the Perrey district, on 27 August 1907. Born into a family of sailors - his father was the head of a workshop in a practical school, in the carpentry section - he followed in his father's footsteps and became a carpenter and cabinetmaker by attending the applied arts section at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Le Havre, and then the Ecole nationale supérieure des Arts décoratifs in Paris. There he met Henri Sauvage, who encouraged him to focus on modern furniture. From then on, as he put it, he would adapt the container to the content. Recommended by Robert Mallet-Stevens in 1930, he participated in the exhibition of the Union des artistes modernes. Four years later, he participated in a competition to design a boat cabin, which led to his meeting with Jean Prouvé, with whom he would work. From 1938 onwards, he took part in the Salon des Arts Ménagers and created a line of storage units with a particular design, which the war was to bring to a standstill in France, but which found an echo in Scandinavian countries. In the aftermath of the war, his links with Raoul Dautry and Claudius Petit, the ministers in charge of reconstruction, enabled him to play an important role in the production of space-saving furniture, adapting techniques tried and tested in boat cabins to save even more space and in social production. In 1947, he became curator of the International Exhibition of Urbanism and Housing. He coordinated the development of model flats (Sotteville-Lès-Rouen) and met the architect, Marcel Lods...

This oak desk from 1949 is an emblematic piece of Marcel Gascoin's work and of the housing Reconstruction period. Marcel Gascoin, born August 24, 1907 in Le Havre and died October 27...