Jean Dubuisson


Jean Dubuisson was a French architect who is regarded as one of the leading practitioners of the French post-World War II years.

Biography

Jean René Julien Dubuisson was born in Lille, France. He was the son of the architect Émile Dubuisson.
He began his architecture studies in the École des Beaux Arts in Lille, before continuing at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris. He received his diploma in 1939, in the studio of Emmanuel Pontremoli. He was Second Grand Prix de Rome in 1943 and First Grand Prix de Rome in 1945, following which he lived in Rome, in the Villa Medici, and in Athens from 1946 to 1949. Upon returning to France, he joined in the rebuilding of France after the massive destruction during World War II.
His submission in the Strasbourg competition of 1951, won by Eugène Beaudouin, secured him a place as one of the limited number of architects commissioned by the national government to build housing projects.
Beyond a classical culture gained at the École des Beaux Arts and on his travels in Italy and Greece, Dubuisson was strongly influenced by Mies van der Rohe, Arne Jacobsen, and Walter Gropius. His numerous projects are characterized by the search for a personal language to resolve the drastic constraints of the immense programs of the time. He alone designed approximately 20,000 units of social housing.
Dubuisson is remembered as one of the major figures of the post-World War II period in France, especially as related to housing: the Shape Village in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, La Caravelle in Villeneuve-la-Garenne and the apartment blocks of Maine-Montparnasse in Paris. He is also known for the National Museum of Folk Arts and Traditions in Paris He won the Grand Prix National de l'Architecture in 1996.
His son is designer Sylvain Dubuisson.

Selected buildings