signé & Jean-Marc Drut are pleased to present :
Marie & Alexandre - La Cité Radieuse, Apartement 50.
When he restored Apartment 50 at La Cité Radieuse, envisioned by French architect Le Corbusier, Jean-Marc Drut felt it would be selfish not to share it with the world. He had the radical idea to invite a designer each year to rearrange the classified space and then present the results to the public as a summer exhibition.
Classified as a historical monument and impeccably preserved, Apartment 50 has hosted some of the greatest names in global design every two years from 2008 to 2018. Designers like Jasper Morrison, Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec, Konstantin Grcic, Pierre Charpin, Alessandro Mendini, and Normal Studio were invited to invest in the original 1952 space and create unconventional installations of their own works.
After a six-year hiatus, the exhibition cycle resumes with Marie & Alexandre, who have been invited to design a scenography for Apartment 50. They will unveil specially created works alongside their already published pieces. The installation spans the entire space, shedding new light on its spatial complexity and making the visit to this classified historical monument even more immersive.
The exhibition Marie & Alexandre, La Cité Radieuse, Apartement 50 has then traveled to Paris, where it was adapted for the gallery and presented during the Paris Design Week from September 5th to October 5th, 2024
CR Coffee Table
CR Vase
CR Armchair
CR Iron Coffee Table
CR Lounge Chair
CR Dining Table
CR Desk System
CR Box System
About Marie & Alexandre :
Marie Cornil and Alexandre Willaume met in 2018 during their participation at Design parade 13 at the Villa Noailles in Hyères. Their backgrounds are indicative of complementarities, Marie studied visual arts at HEAD in Geneva before joining Ecal in Lausanne, while Alexandre completed his training in industrial design at ENSCI - Les Ateliers, also benefiting from a university exchange in San Francisco at the California College of Art.
In 2018, Alexandre had already been working at the Bouroullec studio for nine years, when Marie joined the studio for two years.
Each developing their personal practices, that of painting and sculpture for Alexandre with WANC and textile and color work for Marie, they present together during the summer 2021, the Mobile series at the Villa Noailles which marks the beginning of their work around the red clay of Salerne. The particularity and the strength of the duo are based on the dialogue that Marie and Alexandre establish between themselves and craftsmen-artists. This relationship of curiosity between the two designers is the bearer of fertile collaborations. They apprehend each situation by discovering the materials, their techniques and the know-how of the craftsmen to design objects by an approach that is not hylomorphic. They implement the art du terrain, in which Making is central. Their itinerancy leads them to imagine objects as landscapes or living collections. Their current collaboration with Editors encourages them to think of objects with a wider distribution that complement the collectible approach of the very small series imagined for the gallery.
In March 2022, the Martell Foundation in Cognac inaugurates the Végétasia exhibition, result of a collaboration between the duo, the botanist Marc Jeanson and the Ateliers of the Foundation.
They begin a cycle of exhibitions at the Galerie Signé in September 2022 with a presentation of lights entitled Horizon, followed in January 2023 by Iris, an open research on the mirror object and its reflections.
In March of the same year, the Galerie Signé has presented a new version of the Végétasia exhibition followed in by the Mou and the Berries exhibition in September and December.
Exhibition & Others :
Berries Galerie Signé, Paris, December 2023
Mou Galerie Signé, Paris, September 2023
Végétasia Galerie Signé, Paris, May 2023
Iris Galerie Signé, Paris, January 2023
Horizon Galerie Signé, Paris, September 2022
Internship Ex Ecal Becque, la tour de Paix, Switzerland 2022
Exposition Végétasia, l’intime des plantes, in collaboration with Marc Jeanson, Martell Foundation, Cognac 2022
Galerie Signé, Paris 2022
Collectible fair, Brussels 2022
La Bocca della Verita, Curated by Margherita Ratti, Brussels 2022
Mati Galerie, Geneva 2021
Guru craft & design fair, Paris 2021
Villa Noailles, « Manufacto » Hermès Fondation , Hyères France 2021
Villa Noailles, Design Parade 15, Hyères, France 2018, Finalists of the design festival
