Set pieces.

JEAN PROUVE COMPLETE WORKS VOLUME 3: 1944-1954

By Peter Sulzer. Basel: Birkhauser. 2005. [euro]118

JEAN PROUVE HIGHLIGHTS 1917-44

By Peter Sulzer. Basel: Birkhauser. 2002. [euro]48

Peter Sulzer designed prefabricated concrete systems before becoming professor for construction at Stuttgart then starting a third career in participation (ARs June 1985, March 1987). His decades' long study of Jean Prouve, based on profound admiration for the French pioneer, reflects his process-led attitude. I reported earlier on the first two Prouve volumes (ARs May 1997, Nov 2000): now we have the third, and a shorter compilation Highlights.

Not until you attempt to study an architect's work in detail do you realise how little is published, how few drawings reproduced even in large monographs, how few people have actually seen the archives. In popular sources the same drawings tend to appear, and general histories necessarily depend on secondary sources, taking for granted earlier interpretations. Two areas of study suffer particularly: design development where there may be several versions, and technical detail where understanding involves many complex drawings. For Prouve both are important, for this blacksmith-entrepreneur turned engineer-architect was a great innovator who explored newly developing techniques. His cheap prefabricated houses look unremarkable in exterior photos, but the story develops as you trace how they were made through a gradual progression of prototypes.

Volume 3, covering 1944-54, with some of the most interesting and elegant buildings, runs to 385 pages and is packed with visuals. Presentation is rather archive like: numbered drawings and photos, detailed histories of projects, letters and interviews, even patent documents. Sulzer compiles and describes with great thoroughness, but does not attempt a new master narrative, though many implicit sub-plots emerge. We see what it means when the designer is the maker who also handles the materials. We see the specialist technician contributing to works of others, such as Le Corbusier's Unite d'Habitation. We see the mistake of the generous patron who initiated paid holidays and awarded himself a meagre salary, when he let the business grow too far, so that the profit-minded took over only to reduce quality to eject him.

This is a timely book, for prefabrication is again on the agenda and being reinvented, sometimes in a state of amnesia. It will also inform the continuing debate on the effects of the machine and the transformation or loss of craft. The multi-volume set is less a quick read than for dipping and the shelf, as advice to be pondered over, especially by architects and furniture designers considering details. The Highlights in contrast is a lively taster.