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Mathieu Matégot

1910 - 2001

Mathieu Matégot (1910–2001) was a versatile, independent and self-

taught Hungarian designer, architect and artist who spent most of

his life in his beloved Paris, where he settled in 1931 after travelling

to Italy and the United States, studying at Budapest’s School of

Art and Architecture and gaining experience in set design, window

dressing, fashion, and tapestry.

In 1939, Matégot volunteered for the French army but was captured

and held prisoner in Germany until his escape in 1944. Matégot’s

wartime captivity was important to his later career, as it was here that

he first learned about the techniques and potential of sheet metal

while working in a mechanical accessories plant.

After the war, Matégot established a furniture workshop, initially in

Paris and later in Casablanca, using materials such as rattan, glass,

and Formica, but he is best known for his own ground-breaking

material and technique, which he named Rigitulle, made from

perforated sheet metal. Like fabric, Rigitulle can be bent, folded

and shaped, giving the furniture and home accessories he designed

transparency, weightlessness and enduring modernity.