Auguste Perret redivivus. (View).

The long-awaited retrospective exhibition, Perret, la poetique du beton 1900-1954, at the Musee Malraux, Le Havre (1) is far more stimulating and wide-ranging than might be supposed. Some exhibits warrant a visit in their own right, among them a lively free-hand sketch made in 1952-1954 by the French stained-glass artist Marguerite Hure, showing her overall colour scheme for glazing the imposing tower at the church of St Joseph at Le Havre. 'You want your church to be beautiful, so you must let a woman design the glass', Perret is reputed to have told the Cure.

Archive drawings (many on public display for the first time) are complemented by venerable items of Perret-designed furniture, selected books and magazines from Auguste Perret's own library, art works by friends, clients and associates, a sample chunk of the original, hexagonal glass bricks from the staircase enclosure at the Perret's celebrated apartment block at 25 bis rue Franklin (1903, Paris) and a full-size replica in concrete and stained glass of part of the window-wall at Notre-Dame de la Consolation (1923, Le Raincy). And there are more photographs and models than you can shake a stick at.

Generated by the classification and conservation work undertaken over the past decade at the Institut Francais d'Architecture on the Ferret archive (some 30 000 drawings, 300 boxes of correspondence, several thousand photographs and other items were donated to the CNAM in the late l950s by his widow), the exhibition seeks to reassess Auguste Ferret's place in twentieth-century architectural history and to make his life and work more accessible to all.

The entire ground floor of the Malraux museum has been cleared for the exhibition. Most of the main double-height space is given over to models -- many of them newly made at 1:33 scale -- and huge photographs forming banners and high-level wall-panels. Closer to eye-level, the activities and achievements of the Ferret family are placed in a wider historical, cultural, architectural and social perspective in an illustrated chronological sequence that starts in 1845 (two years before the birth of Ferret's builder father) and ends in 1974 (two years after the Ferret family firm was finally wound up). Apparently, Auguste Ferret died only two years after the invention of the ball-point pen. Less easy to decipher is a second such wall-display presenting an analysis of the Ferret oeuvre.

A warm, domestic ambience has been devised for Ferret's furniture by making intelligent use of some of his own light-fittings, and a brand new cut-away model showing the Theatre des Champs-Elysees (1910-1913) at 1:30 scale has been given a suitably dramatic setting, near cartoons and maquettes by several of the artists who worked with the Ferrets on the building.

A wide selection of drawings from the Perret archive is on show, although the very dim lighting no doubt deemed essential for their conservation makes reading them a strain. To compound matters, the intended ordering is sometimes obscure, not least because the exhibition's 'thematic' sections do not always tally with the information sheet provided. Perhaps such discrepancies will be ironed out at future showings in Turin (2003) and Fans (2004).

Instead of a catalogue, Monum/IFA/Le Moniteur have published a hefty tome (over 2 kilos) called Encyclopedie Perret, (2) containing contributions by some 50 authors from France and 10 other countries on numerous aspects of Ferret's life and work. The diversity of views expressed is refreshing, far less so are divergences in matters of fact -- the year Claude Ferret died is given variously as 1954, 1956, 1960 and 1962, for instance. A printed version of the chronology presented in the exhibition would have been a welcome complement.

(1.) 'Perret, la poetique du beton, 1900-1954' al the Musee Malraux La Havre; every day (except Tuesdays and public holidays) until 6 January 2003.

(2.) Encyclopedie Perret, published by Monam/IFA/Le Moniteur Paris, 2002;price [euro]59. This book should be read in conjunction with Les freres Perre, l'oeuvre complete, published in Paris by IFA/Norma, 2000 (Cf ARs August 2003 p31 and April 2001 pp96-97).

All photographs by Philippe Breland.