André Vermare et Paul Guadet. La noblesse de l’utile. Expérimenter ensemble les emblèmes d’une architecture publique à vocation technique

Abstract

The sculptor André Vermare (1869-1949), winner of the Grand Prix de Rome, and the government architect Paul Guadet (1873-1931) worked together several times between 1900 and the 1920s. Their most emblematic collaboration for the ornamented facade of the École nationale d’horlogerie (the national clockmaking school) between 1925 and 1933 in Besançon can be seen as the result of a commission launched at least two decades earlier. Before the 1920s, Paul Guadet only occasionally invited André Vermare to cooperate on the public buildings he was commissioned to design, such as his first telephone exchange building in 1914. However, he went on to collaborate with him on a regular basis on several projects of professional national schools. The sculpted decoration they conceived together, although not always executed, attest to a long-term dynamic of collaboration. This dynamic can be compared to the inner characteristics of the buildings they were designed for, belonging to a specific building type of utilitarian public architecture. Beyond the production of artworks, this contribution proposes to reconsider the process of collaboration by including the shared process of creation of the projects. It not only aims to examine artistic collaboration as a space of experimentation but also as a place of interaction between individuals.

Keywords

• André Vermare
• Paul Guadet
• professional collaboration
• artistic collaboration
• sculpture
• architecture