Pierre Paulin, le design au pouvoir (book)

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Pierre Paulin, le design au pouvoir (book) collection of national furniture. Authors Zuber-Cupissol Myriam, Geel Catherine, Brejon De Lavergnée, Arnauld Guillaume, Valérie Tamisier-Vétiis. Factory sealed. 2008. Softcover. In French.

In 1983, when François Mitterrand asked the designer himself, this time it was to design a set of furniture for the presidential office. Two years later, Paulin delivers a very sober table, whose pink lacquered metal structure is associated with blue lacquered wood, and also blue leather. It is accompanied by a swivel armchair in amaranth wood covered with canework and a wine-colored wool fabric. If the president seems at first to hesitate to display such modernity, the office ends up taking place in 1988, at the beginning of his second seven-year term, in the golden living room, with other rooms making up a whole. And a second copy was ordered for the television studio where he delivered his solemn speeches. This creation will remain attached to its image, and will accompany other political trajectories, such as those of Élisabeth Guigou, François Fillon, Jean-Louis Borloo or Roselyne Bachelot, who will adopt it in turn.

The edition of this iconic piece is the result of a partnership between the Paulin company managed by Benjamin Paulin, son of the designer, and the Mobilier national, whose common mission here is to promote and disseminate this heritage. Made possible thanks to the know-how of the Research and Creation Workshop (ARC), on which Paulin was able to rely during four decades of collaboration, this limited series production is an opportunity to offer new life to a emblematic work. It also reminds us of the fruitful dialogue that takes place between places of power and design. Here, an innovative approach definitely trumps tradition.

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