Pierre Paulin at the National Mobilier

In the course of a four-decade collaboration with the Élysée Palace, Pierre Paulin and the Mobilier National have created singular and emblematic pieces of French design. The set commissioned in 1983 by François Mitterrand to decorate his presidential office is the quintessence of this.

For this series, the designer borrowed the Tyrian blue and pink from a tapestry by Charles Le Brun exhibited in the Salon doré. A radical gesture, the pink line gives the desk all its lightness. Highly audacious colours for an official office.

Symptomatic of Pierre Paulin’s return to tradition in the 1980s and his taste for cabinet making, the collection delivered in April 1985 made an instant impression – it was presented for the first time on TF1 during a programme presented by Yves Mourousi at the Élysée Palace.

It is these iconic pieces that the Mobilier National is now reviving in collaboration with Benjamin Paulin and Alice Lemoine, the duo behind Paulin Paulin Paulin, by publishing for the first time in limited edition the pieces intended for the President.

With a common ambition to protect, enhance and disseminate Paulin’s works as well as the know-how of the Atelier de Recherche et de Création which prototyped his creations, they open a new window on the history of these mythical pieces.