Desk by Antoine Philippon and Jacqueline Lecoq, c. 1960

This desk was designed by Jacqueline Lecoq & Antoine Philippon for the competition “Utilisation des produits verriers dans le mobilier” organized by the glass manufacturer Boussois in 1960.

With prominent roles at the Société des artistes décorateurs (SAD), Antoine Philippon (1930–1995) and Jacqueline Lecoq (b. 1932) are among the most influential figures of twentieth-century French design.

The award-winning design and architecture duo met in 1954 and opened their independent studio the following year. Together, they established a prolific career participating annually in Salon des Art Ménagers and Salon des Artistes Décorateurs, while also taking local and international commissions, such as the “Pointe de Diamant” Sideboard and 1307 Series Cabinet commissioned by the German industrialist Erwin Behr upon his firm’s fiftieth anniversary in 1962.

Following the generation of SAD dissidents that made up the Union des artistes modernes during the ‘30s and ‘40s, Philippon and Lecoq pioneered a functionalist design that embraced industrial materials like plywood, glass and steel and shunned ornamentation—all-the-while maintaining an undeniable commitment to artistic craftsmanship. Rather than making an outright denunciation of decoration, their experimental designs embraced luxury and sophistication by capitalizing on the elegance of the materials themselves. In doing so, they sidestepped the need for decoration altogether and were able to produce functional pieces true to the ethos of Modernity.

Their seamless mixture of organic and inorganic materials sets up mesmerizing juxtapositions of contrasting surfaces. In their “Pointe de Diamant” series, textured, sensuous mahogany is coupled with pressed plywood doors coated in ultra-cool white lacquer. Philippon and Lecoq’s acuity to geometry adds yet another dimension of spectacular dynamics. Rectilinear faces are divided into quadrants of converging triangles that gently sink inward. These sinking pyramids simultaneously complement and contradict the austerity of the functionalist designs. The structural poetry of these designs is further emphasized as the pieces seem to float elegantly on their chrome-plated steel legs.

Philippon and Lecoq put this gravity-defying strategy on full display for the stunning glass and rosewood Desk (1960). Any severity expected of such strictly rectilinear works is offset by their full embrace of the materials in their sensitive and meticulous design.