Métro'folies - Conférence - Nancy et la Lorraine au temps de l'Art Déco et de la modernité

By François Le Tacon and Jean-Luc André, authors of the book.

The Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes, held in Paris in 1925, is often considered a founding event of Art Deco, although it was in fact a battle between Art Deco in the strict sense and the moderns. Modernism, opposed or complementary to Art Deco depending on the author or source, took shape in the form of the Union des artistes modernes, founded in France in 1929 by Robert Mallet-Stevens. A few years earlier, a regional grouping, the Comité Nancy-Paris, had been set up to try and introduce modernism to the capital of the Dukes of Lorraine. Jacques André, architect and son of Émile André, was a member of the Comité Nancy-Paris, the Union des artistes modernes and contributed to the magazine L'Architecture d'aujourd'hui. With his brother Michel, an engineer, he established a collaboration with Jean Prouvé. One of their most emblematic creations is the Institut de Zoologie, for which they contacted the famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Their many other projects include the Majorelle villas and the extension to Nancy's Musée des Beaux-Arts. The first to venture into Art Deco, Jacques Grüber presented a series of Art Deco stained-glass windows and cartoons with religious, naturalistic or industrial themes at the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris.

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