Villa Albertine & Mobilier National / “Modern Across the Ages”

This event has been cancelled, thank you for your interest.

A direct descendent of French King Louis XIV’s “Garde-meuble de la Couronne”, the Mobilier National is one of the foremost French cultural institutions, in charge of furnishing the official spaces of the French Republic. With a team of more than 340 professionals, including curators, interior designers, and craftsmen/women, the Mobilier National ensures the conservation and restoration of its unique collections, which numbers nearly 150,000 pieces.

The institution also administers textile production through historic workshops such as the Gobelins, Beauvais, and Savonnerie manufactories (among others), creating tapestries, rugs, and lace in collaboration with some of the greatest artists over the past four centuries : Picasso, Matisse, Le Corbusier, Hans Hartung, and more recently Pierre Alechinsky, Kiki Smith, and Sheila Hicks. The Mobilier National also runs a Research and Creation Workshop (Atelier de Recherche et de Création) which produces outstanding pieces of furniture for the French State with internationally renowned designers such as Pierre Paulin, Andrée Putman, and Philippe Stark, as well as young designers including Matali Crasset, Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance, and Philippe Nigro.

The preservation and transmission of this highly specialized know-how has made the Mobilier National a key actor in the field of contemporary creation and the promotion of French decorative arts.

Hosted by Villa Albertine, this exceptional talk with Hervé Lemoine, president of the Mobilier National, is an opportunity to better understand the landscape of support for contemporary design, and to explore this 400-year-old “temple of design”: its history, its singularity as an institution, and its collection, which is a testament to the richness and the variety of French luxury styles.