REDISCOVERED: BUNGALOW DU CAMEROUN

Rediscovered: Bungalow du Cameroun

Hendrik Volp’s Porsche 911 T/R build is all about the smallest details.

It might look humble, but legendary architect Jean Prouvé pushed boundaries with the project you see here. For decades now, the architecture world keeps coming back to the concept of prefabricated housing, buildings designed for repeatable manufacturing and ease of transport, built and shipped at scale just like the many other mass produced goods that define the times we live in.

Rediscovered: Bungalow du Cameroun second image

Though it feels like a very modern idea, its origins really took shape in the post-war period, when there was an urgent need for cheap, mass housing and an appetite for fresh solutions that architects like Jean Prouvé were more than willing to experiment with. Prouvé came up with dozens of prefabricated designs in this period, often with a strong emphasis on a lightweight aluminium structure similar to what you would find on aeroplanes, the mass production of which had been recently perfected during the war.

One of these designs was the ‘Bungalow du Cameroun’ - a dwelling Prouvé had devised specifically for the climate of Sub-Saharan Africa. It was simple, easily assembled and surprisingly ingenious in its methods of passive climate control. Many were built including some larger variants and some remain in Cameroon where they’re still in use to this day.

This example was returned to France by noted Prouvé aficionado Eric Touchaleaume of Galerie 54 who maintains a collection of Prouvé’s original surviving works, restoring them to original specifications so they can be preserved for future generations.