Galerie Downtown François Laffanour

François Laffanour and Mara Cremniter opened the Downtown gallery on rue de Seine in Paris's Saint-Germain quarter in 1982, at a time when furniture designed by architects rather than furniture-makers was still a little-explored corner of the market. Laffanour took over running the gallery alone in 1992 and has continued to lead it since, building a reputation as one of the market's specialists in architectural furniture from the mid-20th century onward — pieces made by architects who, working in the decades after the Second World War, brought a functional, freedom-oriented approach to furnishing interiors. The gallery represents and deals in work by figures including Jean Prouvé, Charlotte Perriand, Jean Royère, and Matthieu Matégot. It also holds the archives of the former Galerie Steph Simon, which from 1956 to 1974 represented furniture by Perriand, Prouvé, Le Corbusier, Serge Mouille, Georges Jouve, and Isamu Noguchi, giving Laffanour's gallery a direct historical link to that earlier program. Laffanour, born in 1952 in El Biar, has worked in the design and antiques trade for over four decades and is regularly described in trade press as a leading figure in the market for 20th- and 21st-century architect-designed furniture. The gallery continues to mount exhibitions from its Saint-Germain address and takes part in international design and art fairs such as PAD.