Pierre Paulin

Born in Paris in 1927, he had a French father and a German-speaking Swiss mother. After failing his Baccalauréat, Paulin trained as a ceramist in Vallauris on the French Riviera and later as a stone‑carver in Burgundy. While training to create sculptures, he sustained an injury to his right arm, which ended his plans to become a sculptor. He attended the École Camondo in Paris afterwards.

Pierre was nephew of Georges Paulin, who was a part-time automobile designer and invented the mechanical retractable hardtop. Georges Paulin was later executed by the Nazis in 1941 and was posthumously honored by the French government for his service in the French Resistance.^[4]

After completing his studies at the École Camondo, Pierre began his career joined Marcel Gascoin's design studio in Le Havre. Through this relationship, he would gain interest in Scandinavian and Japanese design which would influence his works later on.^[1]

In the 1950s and early 1960s, Pierre made his debut at the Salon des arts ménagers in 1953. Where he would appear on the cover of the magazine La Maison Française. 1954 began working for the Thonet company, where he began experimenting with stretching swimwear materials over traditionally made chairs.^[1] 1958 Pierre collaborated with Maastricht-based Dutch manufacturers Artifort.^[5] While at Artifort he would become famous for his Mushroom chair design in1960.

In 2008 Pierre reflected on his time working for Artifort, Pierre said, "It represented the first full expression of my abilities. I considered the manufacture of chairs to be rather primitive and I was trying to think up new processes." he worked with foam and rubber from Italy attached to a light metallic frame, covered by a new stretch material. Pierre Paulin design and furniture^[6] emphasized applied design, focusing on form with comfort as his chair's starting-point.^[7] These novel choices, made Pierre's chair designs round and comfortable shapes, that are still being used in chairs today.^[1]

During the 1970s and 1980s he was invited to decorate and furnish several important places for important people. He redecorated the living, dining, smoking and exhibition rooms of the Elysée's private apartments for Pompidou in 1971. In 1983 he furnished the office of François Mitterrand.^[1] In 1979 he launched his own consultancy and worked for Calor, Ericsson, Renault, Saviem, Tefal, Thomson and Airbus.^[1]

In 1994 he would retire to the Cévennes in southern France but would still continue on designing furniture.^[1] He died on 13 June 2009 in a hospital in Montpellier, France.^[7]

Pierre Paulin was well known for designing chairs. He worked using foams and metallic frames covered with stretch materials, admired for "their clear lines, the sensual feel of their material or just simply for the way their shapes cradled the body." His designs were widely popular during their time and have influenced different designers such as Olivier Mourgue. Pierre Paulin influenced Olivier Mourgue's Djinn chairs that were featured in Stanley Kubrick's classic film 2001: A Space Odyssey.^[1]

• 
  Orange Slice Chair
• 
  Mushroom Chair
• 
  Tongue chair
• 
  Ribbon Chair
• 
  Artifort F644

Pierre Paulin was most famous for his innovative designs during the 1960s when he worked for Artifort. His most famed chair designs were the Mushroom chair (1959), Ribbon chair (1966) and Tongue chair (1968).^[8]