An early form of MiC?
On display at the Cooper Hewitt is a fascinating exhibition of the work of Hector Guimard, probably best known for his iconic work on the style and curves of the Paris Metro. There are sketches, texts, presentations and physical exhibits including ironwork, jewellery and furniture.
What you might not have appreciated (and we certainly did not) was that Guimard also promulgated an early form of modularisation and factory prefabrication. Taken from the Exhibition website:
Hector Guimard was a Socialist, and an activist for political and social change. Guimard’s quest for social justice inspired his designs for a series of rural houses, which were never realized, that reflect a long-standing interest in standardized construction, especially in light of the post-World War I housing crisis. Three rural house types, designed specifically for the “devastated regions” of the countryside, could be built quickly and inexpensively from simple, standardized wooden elements. The structures were to be prefabricated in a factory (including flooring, stairs, doors, casement windows, shutters, carpentry fittings, furnace, kitchen sink, water closet, septic tank, and piping), transported to the building site, and rapidly assembled by a team of laborers. This process was similar to the streamlined one Guimard had employed twenty years earlier for the Paris Métro entrances.
[Alisa Chiles, Andrew W. Mellon Graduate Fellow in European Decorative Arts after 1700 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and a PhD candidate in the history of art at the University of Pennsylvania.]
It was fascinating to read about and see the designs for this early form of MiC, and it was equally disappointing to discover that it was largely unsuccessful as an enterprise. The prototype house still stands in Paris today, but the system was not widely adopted during the post-war building boom.
We have posted before about some of the difficulties faced by the modular building sector, and we should consider the lessons of the past as we try to scale up MiC and modular construction. Why was Guimard’s Standard Construction unsuccessful? How could it have been modified to make it successful?
Check out the exhibition in person, or via the links above.
