Innovative Hotelier Buys Innovative House
Prouvé prefab goes for $4.968 million at Christie’s

Jean Prouvé’s Maison Tropicale sold for an impressive if slightly underwhelming $4.968 million last night (the presale estimate was $4–6 million) as part of a mixed auction of midcentury design objets at Christie’s. Perhaps the only surprise of the sale was the buyer: André Balazs, the hotelier, developer, and bon vivant behind the Chateau Marmont, 40 Mercer, and the Standard hotels. “I really admire Prouvé,” Balazs told AN after the auction. “Not from a stylistic point of view, but because he solved a problem with what was available by any means necessary.”

Prouvé designed the Maison Tropicale as a model for prefabricated housing in French Colonial Africa. A prototype was built in 1949 and deployed to Niamey, Niger, and two more followed in 1951, which were conjoined into a home/office complex in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo. In 2000, French antique dealer Eric Touchaleaume traveled to Africa to recover the houses on a trip funded by American financier and design aficionado Robert Rubin. After a falling-out over their partnership, which ended in litigation, Rubin received the Niamey house and a collection of furniture, and Touchaleaume took the two from Brazzaville, selling the one at Christie’s last night to fund the restoration of the other, which will become a traveling Prouvé museum.

Asked whether his Maison Tropicale would factor into some new boutique operation, Balazs smiled and said no, and neither would it necessarily inspire any new projects because, in a sense, it already had. “I’ve always admired prefab,” Balazs explained. “Especially Prouvé. A lifetime of inspiration drove my purchase.” Balazs said he has not yet decided on a permanent home for his new house, but, he added, “We’ll find something. It belongs somewhere in a sunny climate.” In the tropics, perhaps? “Yes, the tropics.”

As for the rest of the sale, which included furniture and other fixtures by Prouvé, Charlotte Perriand, Le Corbusier, and Pierre Jeanneret that Touchaleaume recovered from Africa and India, it provided further proof that the art market is still hot and interest in midcentury design within that world continues. Less the house, the auction of 110 items netted $3.35 million, with the most expensive sale being a Perriand table for $156,000. Many of the Christie’s representatives taking phone bids were heard speaking French, an indication Prouvé has gained respect at home that he did not always enjoy. Afterwards, though, Rubin could not help but point out that all the items had previously been exhibited in Touchaleaume’s gallery in Paris. “It’s a clearance sale,” Rubin said. Touchaleaume was not on hand to comment on the sale.

Matt Chaban

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