Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The Vallin house and workshop, located 6-8 boulevard Lobau in Nancy, is an architectural ensemble emblematic of Art Nouveau, designed by Eugène Vallin in 1895-1896. Influenced by Viollet-le-Duc, Vallin broke with academicism by creating a functional building, mixing report building and personal workshop. The ground floor was occupied by Vallin himself, while the painter Louis Guingot moved upstairs in 1896. The decoration, entrusted to Victor Prouvé, includes a bronze cariatide and plant motifs on visible metal structures.

As early as 1894, Vallin exhibited in Nancy's first decorative art salon the ceiling of his future dining room, revealing a mature design in advance. A shelling in 1916 damaged the pedestrian door, whose top panel is now kept at the Nancy School Museum. The bronzes of the door, stolen in 1992 and found, are also placed there. Partially classified in 1976, the whole was fully protected in 1994.

The workshop (No. 8) is distinguished by its apparent metal frame in I beams, decorated with plant decorations on the pilasters. The bronze door handle, the allegory of the Renamed Prouvé (1897), and the work lock illustrate the alliance between art and industry, a principle dear to the École de Nancy. These elements, initially in situ, are now exposed to the museum.

Eugène Vallin (1856–1922), cabinetmaker and architect, embodies Nancy's innovative spirit in the late 19th century. His work is part of a regional context marked by the rise of industrial arts and the desire to create a total art, where architecture, furniture and decoration form a coherent whole. The house-workshop thus bears witness to the transition to modernity, between artisanal heritage and technical innovations.

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