Tribute by Frédéric Mitterrand to Jean Dubuisson

Jean Dubuisson, the son and grandson of an architect, had attended the Fine Arts courses in Paris. First prize in Rome in 1945, he stayed at the Villa Medici and then in Athens to return to France in 1950, too late, unfortunately, to participate in the first major reconstruction projects of the country.

Heir to the great classical culture and emulated by the Bauhaus and Le Corbusier, he made his first architectural feats by working on a complex of 800 dwellings in Strasbourg, This led him to rethink the way in which construction materials are produced in large series. This experience will be invaluable to him when it will be for him to realize in 1951 a housing complex for the headquarters of the allied forces in Europe, in Saint-Germain-en Laye, the Shape village, a particularly ambitious achievement and representative of the time.

Jean Dubuisson is the author of many large ensembles but also of the Maine-Montparnasse district and the National Museum of Folk Arts and Traditions. It often had to respond to the necessities of time, to the emergencies imposed by the destruction of the Second World War, to the cruel lack of housing. In this very difficult context, conducive to uniform solutions, he was able to propose original solutions and leave a lasting footprint. This great architect of modernity has made a major contribution to the architectural heritage of our 20th century.