Château La Coste Unveils Pierre Paulin Furniture in Oscar Niemeyer's Last Architectural Masterpiece

The current display at Château La Coste, an artistic creation park, art destination, and organic vineyard in Provence, France, pays tribute to the lives of two late, renowned designers: Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer and French interior designer Pierre Paulin.

The Château La Coste

The Oscar Niemeyer Auditorium is now furnished with some of Paulin’s most well-known works, such as the shell-like Alpha Club Chair and the distinctively folded Déclive chaise lounge. The structure debuted in 2022 and was Niemeyer’s final creation before he died in 2012. The installation opens up a conversation between the two prominent artists of the 20th century.

“Even though Paulin and Niemeyer had quite distinct areas of design expertise, the exhibition shows that they both had a profound respect for the evocative power of curves. Their works have left an immense influence on the fields of design and architecture, and the incorporation of fluid, sculptured shapes into furniture and buildings has infused them with vitality and excitement.” The project team remarked

The Château La Coste revolves around the Pierre Paulin Program, an idea for a home furnishings system that Paulin conceived between 1969 and 1972 but never saw the light of day during his career. The concept behind the system is to use vast furnishings as dividers instead of permanent walls to provide easy reconfiguration of spaces to meet the changing needs of the occupants.

The centerpiece is the Ensemble Dune sofa, which consists of foam, resin, and fiberglass modules with cushioned seating. These are laid out in a vast grid to resemble a landscape made entirely of furniture. The concept was created to be manufactured by Herman Miller. Paulin said that was his worst professional sorrow in an interview before he passed away in 2009. He envisioned that this method would eventually supplant conventional furniture.

The designer’s wife, Maia Paulin, their son, Benjamin Paulin, and daughter-in-law, Alice Lemoine, founded a corporation in 2020 to bring the notion to life. Her mother, Hélène, still resides in the iconic OMA-designed house that her late father, Jean-François Lemoine, acquired for the family in Bordeaux, where the exhibition was initially shown.

However, the new display makes the designs available to a broader audience. The spectacular collection of art and architecture at Château La Coste, which includes the Richard Rogers Drawing Gallery, Frank Gehry’s 2008 Serpentine Pavilion, and sculptures by Louise Bourgeois and Yoko Ono, has made the property a favorite among tourists. The exhibition also features the Tapis-Siège seats, the curving C couches and chairs, and the Module storage walls.

“The ideas propose how furnishings could evolve to become more adaptable and multipurpose in a time when the lines between the home and the office are fading. In this work, horizontal and vertical sections serve as floors, seating elements, and storing dividers, allowing for infinite permutations of living areas.” The project team declared.