What do we know about Manufacture Familiale? Not much at all. This important chapter in Martine Bedin’s career is quite uncharted. Towards the end of the 1980s Martine Bedin began to contemplate ‘unique and distinctive furniture ‘unaided by industry’. In the mid-1990s Hélène Darroze commissioned Martine Bedin for the interior design of her restaurant on rue d’Assas in Paris. This pair of cupboards, along with as the other furniture that we have by Bedin, were produced within the framework of Manufacture Familiale. More than just cupboards they should be considered constituent elements of a décor. They can be used not only as storage but also to mark a transition from one space to another.

The layout of our gallery does not allow us to take adequate photos, as the two cupboards should be opposite one another.