The architect couple Trix and Robert Haussmann have, since the start of their collaboration in 1967, taken the principles of modernist functionalism ad absurdum. The starting point was the Chair Fun campaign initiated by the Swiss Werkbund (also 1967) — with Haussmann objects like the “Anti-Chair” formed from neon tubes, which threatened to collapse at the slightest load. From this engagement they developed, from 1978, the so-called “Lehrstücke”: a reinterpretation of motifs prefigured in Mannerism, playing with illusion, trompe-l'œil and the subversion of the functional.