Joseph-André Motte, ARP and great French furniture

Joseph-André Motte (1925-2013) is one of the most important designers of French Reconstruction. A graduate of the École Boulle, he co-founded in 1954 the Atelier de Recherches Plastiques (ARP) with Pierre Guariche and Michel Mortier, and developed there for ten years furniture of sober modernist elegance. Beyond ARP, he signed the 740 armchair (1957) for Steiner, rattan chairs for Charron, and furnished the airports of Orly, Roissy and Marseille, as well as the House of Iran in Paris. A major institutional career, long in the shadow, today fully recognised.

The 740 Steiner armchair, Charron rattan chairs and Joseph-André Motte airport furniture remain the designer's most iconic pieces. French vintage furniture to find for those wanting a rigorous, historically situated ARP signature.