, and connections. The ‘normative’ modern solution of the steel skeleton was inflected to convey the notion of an egalitarian instrument. Prouve’s buildings welded together the French structural Rationalist tradition with the populist factory of culture. It may be that ‘brutal’ expression of metallic fabrication was intended to express a ‘social realism’ of a kind. But the totality was nevertheless composed with a degree of formality that kept it within the bounds of institutional conventions. It was more radical in its content than in its form.” At this time, Prouve refused the steel tube technique which came out of the Bauhaus. He liked the forces being expressed through the structure of the bend iron and believed it offered a dynamism that could not be obtained with a tube. He derived his inspiration from sheet metal, “bent, pressed, compressed then welded”. Prouve’s construction forms display an economy of materials and means. His aesthetic is one of resistance. Therefore the lines of force, tension, and the point of equilibrium result in a dynamic aesthetic. But Prouve rejected the academic ‘aesthetic’ and instead developed a genuine industrial aesthetic. This aesthetic concerning the materials, forces and dynamism can be seen in the example of the facade at the Maison du Peuple. The springs used for stressing the metal sheets play a very important part in the final visual effect achieved since they equalize the surface plane and tend to impart a double convex shape to them.” Although Prouve had this commitment to creating form “both from the system of fabrication and from the expression of the means of support placed him in a structural-Rationalist lineage running bac k to Viollet-le-Duc, there was also an artisan side ...
