Propos d’Europe II

Jean Monnet liked to repeat that “We are uniting people”.
 
What is most often at the root of creation and progress is the meeting between men and institutions.
Some of these meetings appear to be coincidental; it is sometimes surprising to see how fate organises, through the most complex arrangements, such productive encounters.
It appeared to be a coincidence that the Hippocrene Foundation was able to purchase the former workshop of the architect Robert Mallet-Stevens. But it seems that this workshop steeped in history is an inspired place where meetings naturally encounter an atmosphere of human warmth and kindness.
 
The name Mallet-Stevens itself is evocative of innovative, bold design. After a period of relative withdrawal, he returned to centre stage.
It was thus quite natural that, when preparing a new exhibition of contemporary European art, after the success of the previous year’s show, the Foundation chose “constructed space” as its central theme.

Jean Guyot