Rue Mallet-Stevens
Tucked away in one of Paris’s most prestigious districts, the 16th arrondissement, near the vibrant Avenue Mozart, lies a small cul-de-sac brimming with the refined charm of interwar Parisian artistic elite. It is called Rue Mallet-Stevens, and there is no street in the world that bears its name with more undeniable justification.
Robert Mallet-Stevens was the architect who designed every building in this street, personally resided there, and counted the other property owners and residents as his close friends and like-minded artists. Remarkably, the street was named after him right upon its creation at the initiative of its residents, bestowing an extraordinary honour on the then forty-year-old architect. At the time, Mallet-Stevens was hailed as the most esteemed and influential architect in France.
So, if that’s the case, how is it that we haven’t heard of him before? Who was he really, and what became of him?
The Parisian Artistic Elite
Robert Mallet-Stevens was born in 1886 into a wealthy Parisian bourgeois family, surrounded by artistic influences from an early age. Both his father and grandfather were avid art collectors, in Paris and Brussels, and the house where he was born was designed by none other than François Mansart, the renowned French Baroque architect whose name became synonymous with Parisian mansard roofs. Mallet-Stevens received his education at the École Spéciale d’Architecture, an elite institution known for being less conservative than its rival, the École des Beaux-Arts. There, he encountered emerging artistic trends that would later play a pivotal role in shaping his career.
The winds of change did not take long to arrive. The Great War of 1914 cast doubt on the very foundations of civilization, ushering in an era of new, revolutionary, often intolerant, and barely comprehensible artistic trends. Cubism, Dadaism, Fauvism, Futurism – followed by Surrealism and Constructivism – every day brought something new. For Mallet-Stevens, however, this artistic upheaval was a perfect fit. He quickly established himself as a trailblazer of modern art, with a particular fascination for film. His contributions ranged from publishing a film journal to designing sets for some of the most avant-garde surrealist films of the time.
Yet, as the dust settled, it became clear that the mainstream trajectory of design and architecture was steering toward a more moderate and optimistic style, later known as Art Deco. As this aesthetic was seen as a flirtation with the past, it was a compromise that Mallet-Stevens could not endure indefinitely. Consequently, he and a group of like-minded dissidents founded the Union des Artistes Modernes, with Mallet-Stevens serving as its president. The group issued a manifesto, declaring: “We must rise against everything that appears rich, against everything well-made, against everything we’ve inherited from our grandmothers…”
What a dramatic, fundamental, cultural, and civilizational shift! Who were these people that sound more destructive than the notorious punks of the 1970s? Did they, true to their manifesto, sport long beards, dress in black coats adorned with skulls, and wear tattered jeans like American farmers?
Oh, no… It was quite the opposite. Robert Mallet-Stevens was the epitome of bourgeois dandyism and the arbiter elegantiae of his era. Demanding yet gallant, he was a favoured client of Paris’s finest tailors. From impeccably tailored lister trousers to silk shirts and ties, every detail of his attire was rich, well-made, and perfectly aligned with the aesthetic sensibilities he had inherited from his grandmother, and absorbed during a childhood spent in a home brimming with classical European art.
It’s worth noting that Mallet-Stevens and his like-minded peers represented the highest echelon of Parisian artistic circles – the crème de la crème. In their world, verbal rebellion was considered très chic. Among the occasional followers of Mallet-Stevens’ artistic association was one man who took things a step further: a talented, arrogant architect who adopted the resonant moniker Le Corbusier to make himself more recognizable. In many ways, Le Corbusier mirrored Mallet-Stevens. Yet, he crafted his own brand of architectural modernism and personal marketing, creating a rivalry that gave Mallet-Stevens a formidable contender for the title of most esteemed architect in France.
An Elegant Street for a New Era
At the pinnacle of his architectural career, Robert Mallet-Stevens was presented with a unique opportunity: to design every building on a newly planned street in Paris, and thus, bring his artistic vision to life. The property owners were all his friends and placed complete trust in him. Between 1926 and 1929, this collaboration gave rise to six buildings that form a unique ensemble of pure modernism – strikingly atypical for a city renowned for architecture of an entirely different nature.
Each building is unique, yet they all share common features. Constructed with reinforced concrete, they reflect Mallet-Stevens’ delight in the new-found freedom offered by this material. Expansive spans, rows of large windows, and an abundance of air define the structures. Geometrically, they consist of clean, flat surfaces and visually dynamic, asymmetrically arranged cubes, punctuated by the occasional curved element – a touch of spice enhancing the minimalist aesthetic. The use of colour is equally restrained. Walls are pristinely white, accented by yellow shutters and a few geometric details outlined in dark metalwork, evoking a distinctly Suprematist sensibility. This understated approach to architecture allows greenery – both street-level and on the many terraces – to counterbalance the strict geometry with natural vitality, becoming an equally significant element in shaping the ambiance.
The plot of land where Rue Mallet-Stevens would later rise belonged to banker Daniel Dreyfuss, who retained ownership of one of the buildings (7 Rue Mallet-Stevens).
Another house, at Nos. 3–5, was purchased by ballet choreographer Eric Moise Allatini and his wife, Helena, a writer. Eric was born in Thessaloniki, where his family was among the wealthiest. Their “Villa Allatini” in Thessaloniki is a significant cultural and historical monument, notable for once serving as the dignified house arrest location for Sultan Abdul Hamid II after the Young Turk Revolution.
The house at No. 8 was acquired by pianist Mme Reifenberg, while the architectural crown jewel of the street, No. 10, became the home of twin brothers Joël and Jean Martel, Cubist sculptors and founding members of the Union des Artistes Modernes. The ground floor of their villa housed their studio, while living quarters were on the upper floors.
Similarly, Mallet-Stevens himself resided with his family at No. 12, in a house designed to reflect his personal vision. The last, sixth, structure in the street, also architecturally intriguing, was for the caretaker responsible for the maintenance of all the properties.
It was a dream street, conceived as a model for the lifestyle envisioned in the 20th century – an age of functionality, health, and progress. Peace, tranquillity, greenery, central heating, a telephone in every room, and neighbours who were all intellectuals – artists. When the buildings were completed and ceremoniously unveiled, it was the talk of the day in Paris. The event was covered by all the newspapers and captured by newsreel cameras. For months afterward, audiences in the cinemas across France could marvel at the idyll of high society on the big screen, indulging in daydreams about their own future.
Out of Sync with the Real World
It was all well and good, but by then, architecture had already taken a different path. In American cities like New York and Chicago, a new aesthetic was emerging, rooted in technical superiority and innovation. Meanwhile, Le Corbusier and other European theorists were presenting ever more concrete building philosophies to professional circles. The avant-garde artistic experiments that had once commanded attention were unmistakably losing relevance.
Robert Mallet-Stevens, the crème de la crème, the wealthy bourgeois dandy, who had flirted with post-war extreme avant-garde, struggled to find his footing in this evolving landscape. In the years that followed, he lived more on his past glory than on fresh ideas. Even the street that bore his name and housed his creations gradually faded into obscurity. People, of course, continued to admire Parisian architecture, but their hearts – then as now – were captivated by the classic Haussmannian boulevards and the ornate beauty of Art Nouveau buildings. Mallet-Stevens’ architectural style simply didn’t fit into the picture.
Unfortunately, instead of ushering in an era of lasting peace and progress, the world plunged into another war. During the German occupation of Paris, Mallet-Stevens, whose wife was of Jewish descent, hastily relocated to Vichy France, where they secured relative safety. However, upon returning to Paris immediately after its liberation, he found a city that would never again be the same as the one to which he had given his creativity. Some of his neighbours from the cosmopolitan, artistic haven of Rue Mallet-Stevens were no longer there. The Allatinis and the Dreyfusses had been killed in Auschwitz, while the fate of Mme Reifenberg remains a haunting mystery.
For someone of his sensibility, the pervasive post-war intellectual numbness was even harder to bear. Although the First World War had been a deeper civilizational catastrophe, it had at least shattered some inhibiting taboos, unleashed a joy for life, and given rise to the bloom of a multitude of avant-garde movements – a wave the young Robert had embraced wholeheartedly.
The aftermath of the Second World War, however, was starkly different. The spirit of post-war recovery wasn’t about bold, ground-breaking ideas but about the patient application of the proven ones, advancing step by step along well-trodden paths.
There was no place left for him in this new world. Disillusioned with the world he had once naively sought to improve, Robert Mallet-Stevens passed away in Paris on 8 February 1945, while the war was still raging. He never lived to see the post-war architectural revival – and, truthfully, his enthusiasm for it had already waned. His final wish was for his entire archive to be burned – something that was swiftly carried out, without any debate or hesitation.
In that act, his long-standing rivalry with Le Corbusier was definitively settled. After years of unsuccessfully pitching his services to both the Soviet communist authorities and the Vichy regime, the patient Le Corbusier finally seized his moment. He emerged as the hero of the post-war construction boom and the dominant figure in global architecture – an outcome that only serves to underline a stark contrast to the almost-forgotten Mallet-Stevens.
In 1975, as part of a broader preservation initiative, Rue Mallet-Stevens was placed under heritage protection. By that time, only the Martel brothers’ property had remained in its original form, meticulously maintained ever since. For the few devoted admirers of Parisian Modernism, it offers a rare chance to step back in time and immerse themselves, if only briefly, in the unique atmosphere of the interwar era’s poignant yet ultimately futile optimism.
Darko Veselinović, February 2016
