Twice as Bright

In the catalog for François Dallegret: Beyond the Bubble 2023, the Yale Architecture Gallery’s spring show, cocurator Justin Beal notes that “Dallegret’s first built work was Le Drug, a pharmacy-cum-discotheque in downtown Montreal.” This perfectly framed keyhole view catches the exhibitionist French designer doing what he does best: striking a wild pose. Le Drug, a freaky 1965 installation—its white-epoxied interiors reminiscent of glowing Marshmallow Fluff—is conjured here in photographs, ephemera, and energetic drawings gathered by Beal and Kara Hamilton. So are more than two dozen other projects, many of them imagined rather than constructed. Not uncharacteristically for Dallegret’s oeuvre, Le Drug’s lifespan was short (two years). His work bursts with an exuberance that, like us, is not designed to last.