Robert Mallet-Stevens

Who was Robert Mallet-Stevens?

Robert Mallet-Stevens was a French architect and designer. Along with Le Corbusier he is widely regarded as the most influential figure in French architecture in the period between the two World Wars.

Mallet-Stevens was born in Paris in a house called Maison-Laffitte. His father and his grandfather were art collectors in Paris and Brussels. He received his formal training at the École Spéciale d'Architecture in Paris, during which he wrote Guerande about relationships between the different forms of art. In 1924 he published a magazine called La Gazette Des 7 Arts and at the same time with the help of Ricciotto Canudo founded the Club des amis du 7ème art. A Paris street in the 16th arrondissement, Rue Mallet-Stevens, was built by him in the 1920s and has on it six houses designed by him.

In addition to designing shops, factories, a fire station in Paris, apartment buildings, private homes, and interiors, he was one of the first architects to show an interest in cinema. He designed film sets and his design for Marcel L'Herbier's silent film L'Inhumaine is considered a masterpiece.