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Designers

Jacques Cooper

Born in 1931 in Chantilly (France), Cooper, as a young kid, was already strongly interested in drawing trains. In 1947, he joined the famous Boulle design school in Paris.

Since 1953, he worked for Raymond Loewy, designing famous malls (like BHV, Monoprix…). He also designed a helicopter in 1957 (“Gouverneur”: unique propotype of a “Alouette II” modification).
Then he worked for house equipment companies (General Motors - Frigidaire, Arthur Martin) and car makers (Renault, Brissonneau et Lotz), as a design specialist for “exceptional” cars: Cooper notably designed the Murène prototype (Heuliez), based on a Porsche 914.

At the end of the 60s, as he was still working at Brissonneau et Lotz (producing parts for the SNCF in association with Alsthom), Alsthom boss asked him to design « a train, not looking like a train »…

Roger Tallon

Born in 1929, Tallon is a leading figure in French industrial design in the second half of the 20th century.

Having studied engineering in Paris, he joined Technes design consultancy in 1953.

From 1963, he teached at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, establishing the Department of Design with Jaques Dumond. The creative side of his thinking was underlined by close links with the fine arts, especially the Nouveaux Réalistes. He gained widespread recognition for his transportation design: in 1967 he began a long period of collaboration with French National Railways (SNCF), modernizing their trains.

After Cooper dismissal, Tallon culminated the TGV design for carriage interiors, exteriors, and the visual identity for the whole TGV network. In the early 1990s he became the design director of the TGV Eurostar rail project.