The Bouroullec Brothers

Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, the top design-team brothers from Brittany, are riding high. In January they were chosen as Designers of the Year 2011 by the Maison et Objet trade show, where they displayed an ultra-comfy Ploum sofa for Ligne Roset and an amazing new diamond-shaped contemporary update on a Persian rug design called Losange, for venerable kilim producers Nanimarquina. More recently, they won the competition to provide a contemporary addition to the imposing Gabriel staircase at the Château de Versailles. Originally designed in 1772 by architect Ange-Jacques Gabriel, the staircase, leading to the royal apartments, was completed only in 1985.

The Bouroullecs’ designs are produced by such world famous manufacturers as Vitra, Kartell, Alessi, Magis, Cappellini, Swarovski and Established & Sons. They also do coveted limited editions for the Galerie Kreo in Paris. Their work is found in the collections of influential museums including New York’s MOMA, the Chicago Art Institute, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs and the Pompidou Center in Paris, and they have been given exhibitions in three of the design world’s most prestigious venues—London’s Design Museum, Los Angeles’s MOCA and Rotterdam’s Museum Boijmans van Beuningen.

Now the Bouroullecs finally have their first major retrospective at home in France—a 10,000-square-foot tribute to the last ten years of their work at the Pompidou-Metz, the new annex of the Pompidou Center in the capital city of the Lorraine region.

Oct 7 to July 30, 2012. Centre Pompidou-Metz, 1 parvis des Droits de l’Homme, Metz. 03.87.15.39.39.  www.centrepompidou-metz.fr

www.bouroullec.com

Originally published in the June 2011 issue of France Today; updated in October 2011