Marcel Gascoin, Table TE, France 1950

Marcel Gascoin (1907-1986), shelf with double drawers in blond oak "ET", France 1950. Published by ARHEC (Rational Development of Housing and Communities), this shelf is in solid oak...

Marcel Gascoin, Pair of beech straw chairs, "CF" model, France 1950. Icon of the French Reconstruction period, this chair is remarkable in its rationalism, its ergonomics and the qua...

Pair of pine coffee tables from the furniture of the Foncillon swimming pool, Royan, France, 1950. Legs in crossed arches surmounted by two crosspieces, blockboard. Royan, a seasid...

Oak coffee table by Louis Sognot, France 1950. The free-form top rests on a boomerang-shaped base, connected by a shelf made of original gray lacquered steel logs. Very good conditio...

Desk in oak and oak plywood by Marcel Gascoin, 1949 Marcel Gascoin is the main representative of a French design born after the Second World War, with the reconstruction of destroyed cities. Born in Le Havre in 1907, the young Marcel followed in the footsteps of his father - workshop manager in a practical school, carpentry section - by attending the applied arts section of the École des Beaux-Arts du Havre, then the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. There he met Henri Sauvage who encouraged him to turn to modern furniture. He became a carpenter and cabinetmaker, and from then on he never ceased to adapt the container to the content, as he said himself. Recommended by Robert Mallet-Stevens in 1930, he participated in the exhibition of the Union of Modern Artists. Four years later, he participated in a competition for the design of a boat cabin, which allowed him to meet Jean Prouvé, with whom he would work. In 1938, he participated in the Salon des Arts Ménagers and created a line of storage furniture with a particular design that found an echo in Scandinavian countries. In the aftermath of the war, his links with Raoul Dautry and Claudius Petit, ministers in charge of reconstruction, allowed him to play an important role in the production of furniture with a small footprint, by adapting the techniques proven in boat cabins. In 1947, he became commissioner of the International Exhibition of Urbanism and Housing. He coordinated the construction of model apartments (Sotteville-Lès-Rouen) and met the architect Marcel Lods. It was also at this time that Marcel Gascoin and his collaborators saw their ideas prevail by adapting to the greatest number of people, for the mass production of apartments (model of apartment in Le Havre - Architect Auguste Perret...

This modernist desk/table was designed by Marcel Gascoin for the Cité Universitaire Jean Zay d'Antony in 1955; the dorm rooms and public spaces encapsulate post-war French design and...

Hand-carved rustic coffee table with live edge on splayed legs.

Round coffee table in bamboo with curved legs and a wooden top brass boarder 1950’s French.