them evident in one of his ground breaking early works, the Maison du Peuple at Clichy. “Are our towns, our schools, our public buildings and our houses worthy of our mechanical and atomic age?”, Prouve questions. Of course he argues that they are. The Maison du Peuple at Clichy built in 1938/39 remains even today, an outstanding advanced technical achievement in the application of sheet steel. The building was made in collaboration with the architects Beaudoin, Lods and Bodiansky. The building could be described as a low rise, square pavilion with a glass facade on the first floor and a sheet metal facade on the upper floor. For this project, Prouve is credited with designing the first truly modern curtain wall. This term describes an external, non-supporting wall. The curtain wall is a product of modern architecture that Prouve can take credit for. Curtain walls, now in common use, are made up of standardized, factory-made modular elements and erected on the site. The wall’s only function is to separate the interior from the outside environment. In the structural sense of the term, the curtain wall allows for the use of pre-fabricated elements which, after installation, require no further traditional type of handling. The wall at Maison du Peuple is made entirely of sheet metal. Prouve’s “innovation took the form of corrugated metal sheets precisely bent into shape during the manufacture; this gained him a reputation for meticulous attention to detail.” The materials used in the building had significance not only technologically but also politically, “The Maison du Peuple...explored the notion of transparency as a sign of social emancipation, but in the language of steel girders, moving components and glass...Like Prouve’s slightly earlier Roland Garros Aero-Club at Buc, the Maison du Peuple worked with a direct aesthetic of bolts, joints...
