Serrurier Bovy

"Believe in the future and work for it" ... The oeuvre of Gustave Serrurier, more than fifty years before Le Corbusier and Charlotte Perriand, blazed the trail to contemporary design. Gustave Serrurier, known as Serrurier-Bovy, was born in Liège in 1858 and died in the same city in 1910. He was one of most original figures in the Belgian avant-garde and the international art revival which characterised the decorative arts and architecture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Initially destined for architecture, he switched to the design and manufacture of furniture and décors, taking over the home decoration store run by his wife, Marie Bovy. He shook free of Art Nouveau aesthetics and the return to craftsmanship advocated by the Arts and Crafts movement to design furniture for the masses with a rational aesthetic, stripped of all superfluous ornament, which heralded the modern home. This richly illustrated book is the fruit of fifteen years of research by the owners of the Château of La Cheyrelle, remodelled by Gustave Serrurier. It traces the life of the architect¬designer and looks at all the facets of his oeuvre from his avant-garde thinking to his main furniture and architectural designs. A detailed analysis of his production unravels its complexity and restores Gustave Serrurier to his rightful place as a visionary designer at the dawn of the twentieth century.