(Paris, France, 1922 – São Paulo, SP, 2005).

Designer and architect. At the age of 20, in France occupied by Nazi Germany, Arnoult is forced to work as a janitor in a furniture factory in northern Bavaria, near the city of Würtzburg. Speaking German, he also operates machines and has his first experience with furniture making and wood cutting selection. Upon returning to France in 1945, he studied at the Camondo School’s Technical Artistic Center and spent a year with the designer Marcel Gascoin (1907-1986), a precursor of mass-produced furniture. In 1948, he wins a design competition at his school and is hired by Block & Cia., in Mexico City. The following year, he works at Arquidec, in Venezuela, with the aim of saving money and returning to France.

When passing through Rio de Janeiro, in 1950, he decides to stay in Brazil. He works in the office of the architect Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012) and studied architecture at the Faculdade Nacional from 1951 to 1955. In the office, he met figures such as the politician Juscelino Kubitscheck (1902-1976), the humorist Barão de Itararé (1895-1971) and the painter Candido Portinari (1903-1962). After numerous attempts to sell furniture projects to Brazilian industries, he decides to set up his own business. Together with his friends Abel de Barros Lima and Norman Westwater, he convinces a carpentry shop in Curitiba to make his furniture. With the success of sales, the three opened Mobília Contemporânea in the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, in 1954. With the economic crisis, the company was closed in 1974.

Two years later, Michel Arnoult founded Senta, a company of upholstered and removable furniture for export that operated for seven years. In 1983, he and Joaquim Mello open the Arnoult & Mello office – Industrial and Architectural Design. Since the closing of Senta, Arnoult has carried out autonomous projects and primarily designs popular furniture. He sells his furniture projects to factories in the south and countryside of São Paulo and also works as a consultant for the Tok&Stok store, which opened in Brazil at the end of the 1970s. An advocate and enthusiast of eucalyptus, he designs furniture from this wood for foreign countries. . At the end of the 1990s, he was invited by the Federal District government to improve the production of small factories on the outskirts of Brasília. In 2003, his Pelicano armchair received first place in the Design award from the Museu da Casa Brasileira (MCB). Today, it is manufactured by the Objekto store, in Europe, and by Futon and Company, in São Paulo.

Source: https://enciclopedia.itaucultural.org.br/pessoa26207/michel-arnoult