Studio Marcel Poulain, Clémence Plumelet & Geoffrey Pascal, Arrivée au palais d’été

Winners of Prix du Mobilier national 2021

In partnership with Atelier de Recherche et de Création du Mobilier national

Clémence Plumelet and Geoffrey Pascal – who have just founded, as a duo, the Marcel Poulain studio – benefited from a nine-month creation residency at the Mobilier national. There, they have developed a changing piece of furniture, a central element of this new scenography whose prototype was made by the ARC (Research and Creation Workshop) internal to the Mobilier national, with the support of Lit National. At the dawn of summer, at the centre of a living room still asleep –surrounded by slumberous furniture under their silk veil, the Terence sofa appears as if it had been unfolded in an instantaneous movement marking the culmination of this journey to this Mediterranean palace. What appeared to be a carrying trunk offers a comfortable seat and back for the travellers to rest on. The Marcel Poulain studio has indeed conducted extensive research on the transportability of furniture – in response to the itinerant collections of the Mobilier national, deposited in embassies and other showcases of the Republic. The Terence sofa – whose name is a nod to the numerous trips on the French roads recorded in Terence Conran’s France (1987) by the eponymous designer – embodies the fusion of a container and its content in a single object. The image of a vintage travel trunk was therefore the starting point for the designers. Its volume was refined, its lines were softened. The dialogue with the ARC – and the private manufacturer Lit National – then allowed to further the design of this piece of furniture. The reflection on its restorable aspect led to the creation, for its envelope, of a moulded plywood of French ash leaves, a substance which guarantees good resistance to the moulding process and easy maintenance. The challenge regarding the ratio of the volume and weight combined with the choice of the designers to work only with natural materials led them to team up with a bedding manufacturer of excellence famous for its ecological selection. Each component of the Terence sofa was designed to be removable and finds its place and function when the structure is either open or closed. The handles, allowing the transportation of the closed piece of furniture, are also used to fix the seat cushion in the open position; the feet, which can slide into the case in the closed position, help to keep together the seat and the back when opened. Finally, the buckles of the straps, a safety closure for the transportation, hold the back cushion in place once the sofa is unfolded. In order to optimise the ergonomics of the structure, the ARC offered an ingenious solution : a textile hinge, allowing for the closing of the trunk and giving the back its convex form when opened. The common thread of the reflection developed by the Marcel Poulain studio, which can be perceived in every detail of the design of this piece of furniture, meets the core mission of the Mobilier national : facilitating the movement of the pieces of its collection from an institution to another, while ensuring their proper preservation. Specially designed by the Marcel Poulain studio for Terence and produced by Le Manach, the fabric “À travers champs” featuring wind-swept wheat, also tells the progression of this piece of furniture. Besides a set of items borrowed from the collections of the Mobilier national, of objects bargain-hunted by Julie Barrau (Gallery OU) and by the Marcel Poulain studio, and of ceramic decorative items by Victor Marqué , the scenography stages, with the support of Pierre Frey, the printed reproduction of a tapestry by Jean Picart Le Doux from 1946. L’Éte , an excerpt from his Quatre Saisons, alludes to the rise of the beautiful season that sets the tone for this staging

in partnership with :
Lit national, Rubio Monocoat, Société Choletaise de Fabrication, l’atelier tapisseries-décor, les ateliers de
restauration du Mobilier national, Pierre Frey, Terre du monde, Galerie OU, Moutte et Givaudan, Carré Sol, Nicolas Pujol, A.bsolument, le Manach Tissu, Atelier Palouma