Jules Jean Sylvain Wabbes (1919–1974) was a Belgian furniture designer and interior

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

. Born in

Saint-Gilles, Belgium ( French, ) or (Dutch, ) is one of the 19 municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium. Located in the southern part of the region, it is bordered by the City of Brussels, Anderlecht, Forest and Ixelles. In common with all of Bruss ...

, Wabbes began his career as an actor and after several other jobs, eventually opened an antiques and decoration shop in Brussels. He created his own furniture in a modernist style and was chosen by several Belgian administrations to design and create functional furniture. All his works are based on the expression of pure quality with excellent materials (plain wood, bronze, brass). He is especially famous for his office desks, tables, wall lamps, and casts.

Biography

Jules Wabbes was the son of Henry Justin Gommire Wabbes (1874-1959), and Rachel Pintens (1890-1946). The family came from

Mechelen Mechelen (; french: Malines ; traditional English name: MechlinMechelen has been known in English as ''Mechlin'', from where the adjective ''Mechlinian'' is derived. This name may still be used, especially in a traditional or historical contex ...

and practiced the profession of boatman or timber merchant. Wabbes was not a very good student and left school at the age of sixteen. He became a freelance photographer and established his studio at Chaussée de Charleroi in Brussels in his father's drugstore. After the Second World War, Wabbes opened an antique shop with Louise Carrey on Chaussée de Charleroi in Brussels. Wabbes was very talented with the placing and layout of interesting objects, and some customers asked for advice on placing the furniture which led him to begin with interior decoration. He liked old furniture and furniture pieces that were manufactured with recycled materials which included old beds and balconies in wrought iron. With his interests, he opened a restoration workshop and studied the construction techniques of old furniture. His friends in the art community encouraged Wabbes to move to contemporary designs. He married the designer, cartoonist, illustrator, and author of children's books known as Marie Wabbes on 3 February 1960, with whom he had four children: Sylvie, Marie, Julie, and Henry. Wabbes was awarded several prizes, notably the Milan Triennal fair, and he was considered at the time one of the most talented Belgian interior architects. In April 1965, he was appointed "Knight of the Order of the Crown" in Belgium. Jules Wabbes was a architecture professor at the Institut Saint-Luc in Brussels in 1971.

Works

The development of offices and businesses was Jules Wabbes' specialty. He also built boats, private homes, and student housing. In cooperation with Belgium's famous architect , Wabbes designed the furniture of the Foncolin building (''Fonds colonial des Invalidités'') and the

Glaverbel AGC Glass Europe is an international glass manufacturing group based in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, and the European branch of the AGC Inc. Group. AGC Glass Europe currently employs some 14,500 people.

buildings in Brussels. Other works included the fittings of the Science Library for the ''

Université catholique de Louvain The Université catholique de Louvain (also known as the Catholic University of Louvain, the English translation of its French name, and the University of Louvain, its official English name) is Belgium's largest French-speaking university. It ...

'', and the interiors of Sabena airplanes. Wabbes did renovations of the new Embassy of the United States in the Hague, designed by Marcel Breuer, and the interiors of the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Embassies in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, Brussels,

Dakar Dakar ( ; ; wo, Ndakaaru) (from daqaar ''tamarind''), is the capital and largest city of Senegal. The city of Dakar proper has a population of 1,030,594, whereas the population of the Dakar metropolitan area is estimated at 3.94 million in 2 ...

, and

Rabat Rabat (, also , ; ar, الرِّبَاط, er-Ribât; ber, ⵕⵕⴱⴰⵟ, ṛṛbaṭ) is the capital city of Morocco and the country's seventh largest city with an urban population of approximately 580,000 (2014) and a metropolitan populati ...

. His first Slats furniture line stemmed from his desire to use a durable material. He chose wood at first but had problems with tension and cracks appearing on the surface. Wabbes determined the decorative value of a piece of furniture was by the ways of putting in each timber. Jules Wabbes was chosen by the Belgian airline Sabena to study the interior of their aircraft. He worked with Sabena engineers and visited the factories of

Douglas Aircraft Company The Douglas Aircraft Company was an American aerospace manufacturer based in Southern California. It was founded in 1921 by Donald Wills Douglas Sr. and later merged with McDonnell Aircraft in 1967 to form McDonnell Douglas; it then operated as ...

, Santa Monica in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

and

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

at Convair.

Bibliography

Serulus, Katarina. "Jules Wabbes: Furniture Designer." Design Issues 30, no. 3 (Summer2014 2014): 89-91. Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed 29 September 2016). Serulus, Katarina. "Exhibition and book review of Jules Wabbes: furniture designer." Design Issues 30, no. 3 (Summer 2014): 89-91. Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals, EBSCOhost (accessed 29 September 2016). "Jules Wabbes." (21 April 2010): Biography Reference Bank (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost (accessed 29 September 2016). Pombo, Fátima. "Jules Wabbes (1919-1974): Creating Total Works of Art in Interiors." ''Journal of Interior Design'' 39, no. 3 (September 2014): 25-39. Art Abstracts (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost (accessed 29 September 2016). Pombo, Fátima, and Hilde Heynen. "Jules Wabbes and the modern design of American embassies." ''Interiors: Design, Architecture, Culture'' 5, no. 3 (November 2014): 315-339. EBSCOhost (accessed 29 September 2016). Vedrenne, Elisabeth. "Bulo réédite le Belge Jules Wabbes. (French)." Connaissance Des Arts no. 680 (March 2010): 12. (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost (accessed 29 September 2016). J.-F., L. "LES PROTOTYPES RAFFINÉS DE JULES WABBES. (French)." ''Connaissance Des Arts'' no. 709 (November 2012): 50. (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost (accessed 29 September 2016). A., C. "LA GRANDE DÉCO SELON DUTKO. (French)." ''Connaissance Des Arts'' no. 732 (December 2014): 122. Art Abstracts (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost (accessed 29 September 2016).

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wabbes, Jules 1919 births 1974 deaths 20th-century Belgian architects Belgian interior designers Belgian furniture designers