At Design Miami 2014, Louis Vuitton displayed a modular living concept Pierre Paulin had envisioned with Herman Miller, with 18 unique and never-produced designs: a one-of-a-kind project.

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Playing With Shapes was conceived in 1972 by avant-garde designer Paulin for the American office furniture maker Herman Miller.

An avant-garde designer, Pierre Paulin anticipated with this project the necessary alliance between a changing world, new techniques and a living space that was conceived like a refuge, or an intimate safe house. For 60 years, Paulin has influenced interior design with his rounded, comforting shapes, sculptural chairs, and spaces that seem to undulate like dunes. You haven’t noticed, but his objects are so innovative they have shaped the way people live; Paulin is one of the few designers to have come through the 1950s by defying the modernist tag.

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The body dictates its relationship with the space around it, placing a priority on personal use and keeping the outside world and all its intrusive informational excess at bay – without shutting it out completely.

This full-scale reproduction by Louis Vuitton for Design Miami 2014 of the original mock-up ingeniously combines notions of comfort, ergonomics, the user’s freedom of choice, simple, straightforward solutions and modular design. It reflects a shared vision, as Paulin believed that design should address users’ needs rather than serve style for its own sake. Erm, are you listening Mister Starck?

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In this one-of-a-kind example of modular living, each level forms a coherent whole yet offers complete freedom with respect to furnishings.

Paulin and Herman Miller came up with a revolutionary equipment for residential homes that allows the occupant to assemble and disassemble to create a personal living space depending on the number of rooms desired, furniture, chairs, and in function of family needs and how those might evolve over time.

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Paulin’s mockups, numerous sketches and blueprints provided the foundation for LV to reproduce these pieces.

In keeping with its values, and by reviving one of Paulin’s favorite projects, the Maison Louis Vuitton is contributing to the preservation of a mutual quest for, as the designer himself once put it, “gestures that are powerful because they are balanced and true.” Nope, nothing to buy here, for the time being…