Dominique Imbert: the form of fire

Dominique Imbert’s house is an old sheep barn in the isolated countryside around Viols-le-Fort, a medieval village 25 kilometres from Montpellier. A kind of plaque next to the entrance warns us that this house and, above all, the person living in it are unusual – at least by the conventions of the design world we are used to. The writing says “Dominique Imbert was not born in this house on 28 November 1940.” In fact, the life of this French artist, subsequently also a unique kind of entrepreneur, is closely tied to these places with their rugged landscapes, stone houses and low Mediterranean vegetation.   For Dominique Imbert life is not made up of compromises or diplomatic choices. Born in 1940 in Montpellier, he studied literature in London and Paris and gained a doctorate in sociology at the Sorbonne. But in 1967 he decided to abandon teaching and return to the area he originally came from in order to work on iron sculpture and develop a studio. He bought a ramshackle building in Viols-le-Fort with a ground floor was filled with debris and waste. The building lacked a roof, water and electricity, and had a tree growing inside, but he managed to live there while he restored it.

In these primitive conditions – in the total absence of bourgeois habits – Imbert made practical use of the art of sculpture. It was exceptionally cold in the house (if you could call it that), so Imbert constructed a suspended iron fireplace. It descended from the ceiling and expanded into a flattened, stretched shape – a black sculpture that finally gave him the warmth he needed. He called it Antéfocus: created to solve a practical problem, it would be the first in a long line of fireplaces. It would, in fact, be visitors to the French artist’s studio who would ask him to replicate this first design. This became Gyrofocus, a fireplace which could be rotated through 360°: it would become a true design icon of the 1970s.

This artist’s rêverie has turned into an entrepreneurial venture: Focus is today a company specialising in the manufacture of metal fireplaces and furniture. It has around 80 employees working at two locations, Viols le Fort and Cavaillon, but produces new models without compromising the initial vision. When, for example, Norman Foster asked Imbert to make a fireplace for the atrium of an international electronics firm using a design from Foster’s studio, Imbert withdrew without a second thought. The two, however, were too attracted by each other not to work together, and in 2000 they reached an agreement, with Imbert creating the Filiofocus géant for Foster. This is a fireplace with a unique presence: it forms inside itself an unexpected, intimate corner in a glassed space almost 15 metres high. Its chimney runs down from the ceiling for 13.8 metres in a conical shape with a diameter of 1.2 metres. As a result, a space that is potentially anonymous – designed to represent a multinational company – has become an environment with a unique meaning.

The pieces are all unique. They are created entirely by hand in the factory at Cavaillon and the designs are scrutinised to the last detail to ensure that the finished product is perfectly adapted to the space it is destined for. This is architecture reduced to a domestic scale – interior sculpture with a plastic presence. You see this, for example, in the wild deer observation centre designed by Snøhetta in Norway’s Dovrefjell national park. This Corten box, lined with curving wood that creates continuous internal seating, is heated with a Gyrofocus.

The privilege of working with Dominique Imbert has always been the architect’s, rather than the final user’s, because of the exceptional characteristics of his fireplaces. Einar Jarmund and Håkon Vigsnæs (Jarmund/Vigsnæs AS Arkitekter), for example, have often made use of his work in their domestic architecture. In Trondheim’s recently completed Polite House, the two Norwegian architects have grouped the living areas of this detached home around a suspended, central fireplace: the Bathyscafocus. 

Dominique Imbert says that we should only do the things we like to do in life – so it will never feel like we are working. In truth, this irreverent idea conceals an enlightened entrepreneurial vision: over time, Imbert has bought up some abandoned houses in the village of Viols-le-Fort, which have been reconstructed and are now offices and showrooms for Focus – and provide work for many of the village’s residents.