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May 16th, 2007, 12:28 AM
From Africa to Queens Waterfront, a Modernist Gem for Sale to the Highest Bidder
By WILLIAM L. HAMILTON
Published: May 16, 2007
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/05/15/nyregion/16house.xlarge1.jpg
Jean Prouvé’s Maison Tropicale, one of only three ever produced, spent 49 years in Africa before being
taken apart and sent back to France for restoration. Christie’s expects it to fetch $4 million to $6 million at auction.
For anyone still looking for a house for the summer, something very exclusive is about to come up in Queens.
Tomorrow, the Maison Tropicale, a small aluminum-paneled house built in 1951 by Jean Prouvé, a French designer and the current court favorite of well-heeled contemporary art and design collectors internationally, is being opened to the public for preview in Long Island City. Christie’s, the auction house, will offer it for sale on June 5. The presale estimate is $4 million to $6 million.
It’s cash and carry. The structure is a kit of metal parts, like an Ikea piece, but bigger. It was conceived by Prouvé as a utopian prototype for prefabricated housing for French colonial officials working in Africa. Eric Touchaleaume, a French antiques dealer, bought the house and two others in 2000 — the only three produced, and that actually made the plane trip to the Congo and Niger in the 1940s and ’50s. He then took them apart and shipped them back to France.
Mr. Touchaleaume has said he is selling the Maison Tropicale reassembled in Queens to finance a Prouvé museum, which will travel in another of the three Maisons Tropicale. The house’s riverside preview site, directly to the south of the Queensboro Bridge, is owned by Silvercup Studios and is being developed as a $1 billion complex with two towers of luxury residences — a more New York kind of utopia.
The Maison is also plug-and-play: there was never any plumbing, and it is wired for electricity. It ships in six containers. Christie’s is compiling a short list of potential bidders with substantial properties in Mustique, Antigua, the Hamptons — name your playground — who might like a 59-foot-by-32-foot- -by-16-foot-tall folly/outdoor sculpture/guesthouse/vintage metal toy to park on the lawn, with a designer label attached.
For now, the house, resurrected from pauperdom in Brazzaville, the Congo Republic, to princedom in Paris by a restoration that Mr. Touchaleaume said cost nearly $2 million, is in Queens, on Vernon Boulevard.
It is a short walk from the Queensbridge public housing project; the KeySpan Energy Ravenswood power station with its three monumental chimneys; the Queensboro Express newsstand — whose most popular magazine titles, displayed in the window, include Don Diva, Platinum Braids, and Rides — and Scandals, a topless bar at Queens Plaza.
“Ah, oui, Scandales,” Mr. Touchaleaume said, to the amusement of four Christie’s employees, as he led a tour of the Maison last Thursday. “The garden of temptation. We could make a private party here with the girls of Scandales.” Mr. Touchaleaume, sunburned by his three weeks outdoors assembling his house with 14 workers, was wearing a newsboy’s cap that spelled “Guz” across the top of his head.
The Maison came to Queens through a series of discussions with local art institutions, including P.S. 1 and Socrates Sculpture Park, which declined to play host to the house but referred Christie’s to Silvercup Studios and its vacant lot.
On late Saturday afternoon, the sun dropped toward the skyline of Midtown Manhattan, which forms the backdrop for Prouvé’s perch on the East River. Framed by a Con Edison facility and the base of the bridge, the Maison, which sits on steel stilts and a wooden deck, looked like a World’s Fair pavilion that had gotten lost on its way to Flushing Meadow somewhere between the events in 1939 and 1964.
The trip to Long Island City is only the latest of the house’s remarkable expeditions. After 49 years in the Congo, which included several civil wars that left it pocked with bullet holes (all but one, on a railing, were repaired), the Maison, occupied by squatters, was sold twice to Mr. Touchaleaume, he said, by two parties who each claimed ownership. Mr. Touchaleaume added that he also paid the government, which raised patrimonial claims, and waited five months for the railroad to reopen before shipping the house out.
Robert M. Rubin, a retired financier who collaborated with Mr. Touchaleaume on the project to retrieve the Prouvé prototypes, bought the third Maison Tropicale from him. Mr. Rubin has given his to an American foundation, which has placed it on long-term loan to the Centre Pompidou in Paris, which intends eventually to exhibit it.
“It was easier in the Congo than in New York, to get the authorizations,” Mr. Touchaleaume said, surveying the Modernist hut now sitting below the bridge.
The safari of rich collectors, crossing the bridge to Queens, could be remarkable, too. On Saturday, in a private viewing for friends and family of Christie’s and Mr. Touchaleaume’s, the town cars, the pale bronze Mercedes and the dark gray Rovers that drove up through the preview site’s chain-link fence seemed an advance guard for things to come. (The glitter-green Jaguar parked on Vernon Boulevard by the gate appeared not to be a part of the Christie’s party.)
Joseph Clerisme, a security guard hired to watch the Maison during the day, made a guess, when asked, about the price of the stilted steel bungalow. Mr. Clerisme lives in Queens Village and owns his own house. He estimated Prouvé’s house at $500,000, based on the $400,000 he would like to get for his own house, if he sold it, he explained.
Told the Christie’s estimate, Mr. Clerisme reacted the way anyone might to a New York real estate tale.
“People are crazy,” he said.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/05/15/nyregion/01.01.jpg
In early June, Christie’s will auction this house, the Maison Tropicale, built in 1951 by Jean Prouvé, a 20th-century
French designer whose work has enjoyed a revival in popularity. The presale estimate is $4 million to $6 million.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/05/15/nyregion/01.02.jpg
Eric Touchaleaume, a French antiques dealer, inside the house, which he bought in 2000 along with two others like it,
the only three ever produced. He had them carefully taken apart and shipped out of Africa, where they had spent
the first half-century of their lives, back to France for restoration.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/05/15/nyregion/01.03.jpg
The house, which Mr. Prouvé conceived of as a utopian prototype for prefabricated housing for French colonial
officials working in Africa, is in Long Island City, just south of the Queensboro Bridge, so potential buyers can preview it.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/05/15/nyregion/01.04.jpg
The aluminum-paneled house, less than 2,000 square feet, has been restored after years of neglect in Brazzaville,
Congo Republic. Mr. Touchaleaume wants to sell it in order to restore another of the Maisons Tropicales and turn
that one into a traveling Prouvé museum.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/05/15/nyregion/01.05.jpg
Mr. Prouvé, who died in 1984, was a pioneer of prefabrication and was one of the first to make use of folded sheet
steel and other experimental materials. The Maison Tropicale is wired for electricity but never had running water.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
By WILLIAM L. HAMILTON
Published: May 16, 2007
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/05/15/nyregion/16house.xlarge1.jpg
Jean Prouvé’s Maison Tropicale, one of only three ever produced, spent 49 years in Africa before being
taken apart and sent back to France for restoration. Christie’s expects it to fetch $4 million to $6 million at auction.
For anyone still looking for a house for the summer, something very exclusive is about to come up in Queens.
Tomorrow, the Maison Tropicale, a small aluminum-paneled house built in 1951 by Jean Prouvé, a French designer and the current court favorite of well-heeled contemporary art and design collectors internationally, is being opened to the public for preview in Long Island City. Christie’s, the auction house, will offer it for sale on June 5. The presale estimate is $4 million to $6 million.
It’s cash and carry. The structure is a kit of metal parts, like an Ikea piece, but bigger. It was conceived by Prouvé as a utopian prototype for prefabricated housing for French colonial officials working in Africa. Eric Touchaleaume, a French antiques dealer, bought the house and two others in 2000 — the only three produced, and that actually made the plane trip to the Congo and Niger in the 1940s and ’50s. He then took them apart and shipped them back to France.
Mr. Touchaleaume has said he is selling the Maison Tropicale reassembled in Queens to finance a Prouvé museum, which will travel in another of the three Maisons Tropicale. The house’s riverside preview site, directly to the south of the Queensboro Bridge, is owned by Silvercup Studios and is being developed as a $1 billion complex with two towers of luxury residences — a more New York kind of utopia.
The Maison is also plug-and-play: there was never any plumbing, and it is wired for electricity. It ships in six containers. Christie’s is compiling a short list of potential bidders with substantial properties in Mustique, Antigua, the Hamptons — name your playground — who might like a 59-foot-by-32-foot- -by-16-foot-tall folly/outdoor sculpture/guesthouse/vintage metal toy to park on the lawn, with a designer label attached.
For now, the house, resurrected from pauperdom in Brazzaville, the Congo Republic, to princedom in Paris by a restoration that Mr. Touchaleaume said cost nearly $2 million, is in Queens, on Vernon Boulevard.
It is a short walk from the Queensbridge public housing project; the KeySpan Energy Ravenswood power station with its three monumental chimneys; the Queensboro Express newsstand — whose most popular magazine titles, displayed in the window, include Don Diva, Platinum Braids, and Rides — and Scandals, a topless bar at Queens Plaza.
“Ah, oui, Scandales,” Mr. Touchaleaume said, to the amusement of four Christie’s employees, as he led a tour of the Maison last Thursday. “The garden of temptation. We could make a private party here with the girls of Scandales.” Mr. Touchaleaume, sunburned by his three weeks outdoors assembling his house with 14 workers, was wearing a newsboy’s cap that spelled “Guz” across the top of his head.
The Maison came to Queens through a series of discussions with local art institutions, including P.S. 1 and Socrates Sculpture Park, which declined to play host to the house but referred Christie’s to Silvercup Studios and its vacant lot.
On late Saturday afternoon, the sun dropped toward the skyline of Midtown Manhattan, which forms the backdrop for Prouvé’s perch on the East River. Framed by a Con Edison facility and the base of the bridge, the Maison, which sits on steel stilts and a wooden deck, looked like a World’s Fair pavilion that had gotten lost on its way to Flushing Meadow somewhere between the events in 1939 and 1964.
The trip to Long Island City is only the latest of the house’s remarkable expeditions. After 49 years in the Congo, which included several civil wars that left it pocked with bullet holes (all but one, on a railing, were repaired), the Maison, occupied by squatters, was sold twice to Mr. Touchaleaume, he said, by two parties who each claimed ownership. Mr. Touchaleaume added that he also paid the government, which raised patrimonial claims, and waited five months for the railroad to reopen before shipping the house out.
Robert M. Rubin, a retired financier who collaborated with Mr. Touchaleaume on the project to retrieve the Prouvé prototypes, bought the third Maison Tropicale from him. Mr. Rubin has given his to an American foundation, which has placed it on long-term loan to the Centre Pompidou in Paris, which intends eventually to exhibit it.
“It was easier in the Congo than in New York, to get the authorizations,” Mr. Touchaleaume said, surveying the Modernist hut now sitting below the bridge.
The safari of rich collectors, crossing the bridge to Queens, could be remarkable, too. On Saturday, in a private viewing for friends and family of Christie’s and Mr. Touchaleaume’s, the town cars, the pale bronze Mercedes and the dark gray Rovers that drove up through the preview site’s chain-link fence seemed an advance guard for things to come. (The glitter-green Jaguar parked on Vernon Boulevard by the gate appeared not to be a part of the Christie’s party.)
Joseph Clerisme, a security guard hired to watch the Maison during the day, made a guess, when asked, about the price of the stilted steel bungalow. Mr. Clerisme lives in Queens Village and owns his own house. He estimated Prouvé’s house at $500,000, based on the $400,000 he would like to get for his own house, if he sold it, he explained.
Told the Christie’s estimate, Mr. Clerisme reacted the way anyone might to a New York real estate tale.
“People are crazy,” he said.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/05/15/nyregion/01.01.jpg
In early June, Christie’s will auction this house, the Maison Tropicale, built in 1951 by Jean Prouvé, a 20th-century
French designer whose work has enjoyed a revival in popularity. The presale estimate is $4 million to $6 million.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/05/15/nyregion/01.02.jpg
Eric Touchaleaume, a French antiques dealer, inside the house, which he bought in 2000 along with two others like it,
the only three ever produced. He had them carefully taken apart and shipped out of Africa, where they had spent
the first half-century of their lives, back to France for restoration.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/05/15/nyregion/01.03.jpg
The house, which Mr. Prouvé conceived of as a utopian prototype for prefabricated housing for French colonial
officials working in Africa, is in Long Island City, just south of the Queensboro Bridge, so potential buyers can preview it.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/05/15/nyregion/01.04.jpg
The aluminum-paneled house, less than 2,000 square feet, has been restored after years of neglect in Brazzaville,
Congo Republic. Mr. Touchaleaume wants to sell it in order to restore another of the Maisons Tropicales and turn
that one into a traveling Prouvé museum.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/05/15/nyregion/01.05.jpg
Mr. Prouvé, who died in 1984, was a pioneer of prefabrication and was one of the first to make use of folded sheet
steel and other experimental materials. The Maison Tropicale is wired for electricity but never had running water.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company