Maison Tropicale, a house designed by Jean Prouvé in the 1950s, will be open to visitors from next month

A flat-pack home, missing for nearly 50 years, has been reassembled outside London’s Tate Modern.

The Maison Tropicale was designed by French architect Jean Prouvé to solve housing problems in France’s West African colonies. One of three prototypes, it was erected in the Republic of Congo in 1951. Found in 2001, abandoned and riddled with bullet holes, the house was packed up and sent back to France.

The Maison Tropicale was designed for mass production and made from folded sheet steel and aluminium. All parts are flat, lightweight and designed to fit in a cargo plane.

It is now the property of French hotelier, André Balazs. He has allowed it to appears outside Tate Modern to tie in with the Design Museum’s exhibition, Jean Prouvé – The Poetics of the Technical Object. The building will open to visitors from 5 February to April 15.

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