Track Record

On the North Fork of Long Island, Tom Kundig devises a kinetic showcase for a rare Jean Prouvé masterwork

- SAM COCHRAN

In 1944, as World War II ravaged Europe, the French Ministry of Reconstruction and Urban Planning enlisted then 43-year-old architect Jean Prouvé to conceive temporary shelter for displaced citizens.

The results have since become one of the enduring icons of prefabricated design: a series of low-cost, easy-to-build dwellings, constructed using his patented axial portal frame. Only some 400 of these demountable houses were ever realized. Of those, many now belong to museum collections.