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Paris
galinsky travel pack

Summary descriptions of modern buildings to visit in and around Paris

Fuller descriptions, with more photographs and links to other web sites, are at [Link]

Copyright galinsky 2004

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galinsky buildings in Paris

listed in date order in the following pages
Parc de la Villette 1993

La Grande Arche 1989

Villa Savoye 1929

Le Grand Louvre 1986

Centre Pompidou 1977
Villa La Roche 1925
Villa Jeanneret 1925

Opra de la Bastille 1989

Institut du Monde Arabe 1987

Canal+ Headquarters 1992

Parc Andr-Citren 1992

Fondation Cartier 1994

American Center 1994
Bibliothque Nationale 1995

Cit de Refuge 1933

Htel Industriel 1990
Masison Planeix 1928
Pavillon Suisse 1932

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Villa La Roche
10 square du Docteur-Blanche
75016 Paris
France
Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret 1925

The Villa La Roche is a perfect showcase for Le Corbusier's new architecture,

designed for a Swiss banker and collector of avant-garde art. The whole house is the
art gallery, an 'architectural promenade' - a theme inspired by Le Corbusier's visit to
the Acropolis in 1911 and repeated most strikingly in his Carpenter Center for the
Visual Arts nearly forty years later.
As Charles Jencks describes the promenade,
Open the door, go under a bridge, and the tight space explodes upwards and through punchedout voids that are mysteriously backlit. Go across the triple-height space, look at the Purist
paintings, one of which you now seem to be moving through, turn left up a stair, and survey the
pure prisms from a balcony...
...Catch your breath, turn around, and proceed to the culmination, La Roche's curved gallery...
[M]ount the brown ramp to the left, to Le Roche's aerie, his top-lit library. The spatial sequence
is remarkable and remained a constant preoccupation of Le Corbusier. It also became the stock
in trade of subsequent Modern architects.

Simon Glynn 2002

How to visit
The Villa La Roche has recently been thoroughly restored and can now be seen in
pristine condition - the bright white surfaces and the blues, reds and blacks.
The villa is open to the public, administered by the Fondation Le Corbusier, which is
based in the adjoining Villa Jeanneret at 8 square du Docteur-Blanche. For visiting
hours please call +33 1 42 88 41 53 or visit [Link].
The villa is ten minutes' walk west of Jasmin metro station on Line 9. From the metro
station follow rue Jasmin (direction south-west) to the end, turn right onto rue Raffet,
then right again onto rue du Docteur Blanche. Square du Docteur-Blance is a private
square behind wrought iron gates shortly on your right, with the Villa La Roche at the
end (and the Villa Jeanneret on your right just before it).

Villa La Roche, Paris

Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret 1925

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Villa Jeanneret
8 square du Docteur-Blanche
75016 Paris
France
Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret 1925

The Villa Jeanneret was commissioned by Le Corbusier's brother, Albert Jeanneret,

and his fiance Lotti Raaf. It forms part of a joint project with the connected Villa La
Roche - the original scheme involved more houses and more clients, but it was only
Jeanneret and La Roche that stayed the course and saw their villas built.
'The requirements were for a salon, dining room, bedrooms, a study, a kitchen, a maid's room
and a garage. As the site faced north, and there were zoning restrictions against windows
looking over the surrounding back gardens, it was necessary to get light in by carving out light
courts, a terrace, and ingenious skylights. As one moves up the house, the spaces seem to
expand in size. The culmination of the route is the roof terrace, not unlike the deck of a ship.
Interiors are treated plainly; early photographs show Purist pictures, Thonet chairs and North
African rugs.
William J.R. Curtis, Le Corbusier - Ideas and Forms, 1986

Simon Glynn 2002

How to visit
The villa is used as the offices of the Fondation Le Corbusier and is not normally
open to the public. For more information call +33 1 42 88 41 53 or visit
[Link].
The villa is ten minutes' walk west of Jasmin metro station on Line 9. From the metro
station follow rue Jasmin (direction south-west) to the end, turn right onto rue Raffet,
then right again onto rue du Docteur Blanche. Square du Docteur-Blance is a private
square behind wrought iron gates shortly on your right, with the Villa Jeanneret on
your right once you enter the square.
The adjoining Villa La Roche at the end of the square is open to the public and well
worth a visit.

Villa Jeanneret, Paris

Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret 1925

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Maison Planeix
24 bis boulevard Massna
75013 Paris
France
Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret 1928

The Maison Planeix is a perfectly proportioned, squat terrace house that is at once
grand in the symmetry of its entrance, balcony and overall facade, and modest in its
scale and materials. It was built for Antonin Planeix, a sculptor of funerary
monuments.
Le Corbusier 'used the formula "une maison/un palais" - "a house/a palace." He meant... the
ennoblement of a basic house type through proportion to the point where it achieved
monumentality... If there is a single Le Corbusier house of the 1920s that really deserves the
description "une maison, un palais", it must surely be the Maison Planeix of 1924-8.
This stands on the avenue Massna, a wide and noisy street to the east end of Paris. It is a
miniature urban palace in effect and in intention: with a formal, symmetrical facade, an entrance
axis, a piano nobile , an emphasized ground level and cornice, and even, at one stage of its
design, a courtyard.
William J.R. Curtis, Le Corbusier: Ideas and Forms, 1986

Simon Glynn 2001

How to visit
The Maison Planeix is a private house. It can be seen from the street, or inside by
prior appointment only: call +33 1 45 83 73 50.
Take the metro line 7 to Porte d'Ivry. Leaving the station walk East along boulevard
Massna. You will find the Maison Planeix in the middle of a terrace in a few hundred
meters on your left (North side of the road).

Maison Planeix, Paris

Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret 1928

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Villa Savoye
82 rue de Villiers
78300 Poissy
France
Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret 1929

The Villa Savoye is a wonderful demonstration of Le Corbusier's 'five points of a new

architecture', which he developed in 1927, exploiting the new opportunities of
reinforced concrete:
The pilotis (supporting columns): 'The house on pilotis ! The house is firmly driven into the
ground - a dark and often damp site. The reinforced concrete gives us the pilotis . The house is
up in the air, far from the ground: the garden runs under the house...'
The roof gardens: '...the garden is also over the house, on the roof... Reinforced concrete is the
new way to create a unified roof structure One particular protective measure: sand covered
with thick concrete slabs, with widely spaced joints; these joints are sown with grass.'
Free plan: 'Until now: load-bearing walls; from the ground they are superimposed, forming the
ground floor and the upper stories, up to the eaves. The layout is a slave to the supporting
walls. Reinforced concrete in the house provides a free plan! The floors are no longer
superimposed by partition walls. They are free.'
The horizontal window: 'The window is one of the essential features of the house. Progress
brings liberation. Reinforced concrete provides a revolution in the history of the window.
Windows can run from one end of the facade to the other.'
The free facade: 'The columns set back from the facades, inside the house. The floor continues
cantilevered. The facades are no longer anything but light skins of insulating walls or windows.
The facade is free.
Le Corbusier, quoted in the house's visitor brochure by the Centre des monuments nationaux.

Simon Glynn 2001

How to visit
The house is open to the public. You are free to tour the house unaccompanied, with
an informative leaflet as a guide. The sitting room is partially furnished; other rooms
are [Link] house is open every day except Mondays and certain holidays.
To confirm opening hours: Telephone +33 1 39 65 01 06, fax +33 1 39 65 19 33 or
email villa-savoye@[Link]
To get there from Paris, take the RER line A to Poissy (west end of the line, 30-40
minutes from central Paris). Then take bus 50, direction La Coudraie, stop Lyce Le
Corbusier, or it's 15 minutes' walk (up hill) or 5 minutes in a taxi. Well worth the trip.

Villa Savoye, Poissy

Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret 1929

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Pavillon Suisse (Swiss Pavilion)

7 boulevard Jourdan
75014 Paris
France
Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret 1932

Cit universitaire was founded in 1921 to provide accommodation and support for
foreign students in Paris, with a number of residential pavilions endowed by different
national communities. Le Corbusier was commissioned by the Swiss community in
the late 1920s.
The pavilion adheres to Le Corbusier's 'five points of architecture', but with a number
of developments since the Villa Savoye. The free facade and horizontal window have
become a continuous glazed curtain wall, on the south side of the building (above).
The pilotis have developed from thin columns to six massive reinforced concrete
'dog-bones' or 'thighs' with their characteristic figure-of-eight cross section to
withstand winds.
While the client accepted the student rooms being raised in mid air, the public spaces
were required to be on the ground. The plan accommodates them in a separate block
sitting on the earth, its curvaceous form contrasting with the simple slab of the
student accommodation.
Simon Glynn 2001

How to visit
After a period of renovation, the building is now open to the public again. Opening
hours are weekdays 10am-12pm and 2-5pm.
Take the RER to Cit universitaire. Cross the road into the university campus. Go
down the steps to your left, and follow the road to the end, where the Pavilion is on
your right. (There is a plan of the campus inside the RER station.)

Pavillon Suisse, Paris

Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret 1932

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Cit de Refuge
12 rue Cantagruel
75013 Paris
France
Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret 1933

The Salvation Army Refuge in Paris was Le Corbusier's first opportunity to create
accommodation for the urban poor, under the philanthropy of the Princesse to
Polignac, an heiress of the Singer Sewing Machines fortune. The compact site
provided the chance for a radical approach both to bringing in light and space and to
laying out the entrance halls to accommodate the Salvation Army's reception
process.
The core of Le Corbusier's design was the dormitory slab with a sheer glass curtain
wall. Critical to the success of this south-facing glass wall was to have been a
technologically ambitious system of double glazing and air conditioning (' respiration
exacte'). These were never built as intended, and the sheer skin of the wall was lost
to Le Corbusier's trademark brises soleils later on in an attempt to prevent the
inhabitants from overheating.
In the spirit of the free plan, Le Corbusier took the entrance hall components out of
the dormitory block, constructing a geometric pathway through separate reception
buildings outside. It has been suggested that this
'clever reinterpretation of a Beaux-Arts ceremonial route... was directly inspired by the bastions,
gate-house, moat and drawbridge of a medieval fortress. By metaphorical inversion the thick
walls of past despotism became the transparent facades of supposed modern emancipation.
The steel canopy with V-shaped tubes supporting it could be read as a drawbridge turned on its
head.
William J.R. Curtis in Le Corbusier - Ideas and Forms 1986

Simon Glynn 2001

How to visit
The Refuge is in use but can be seen from the outside.
Take the RER to Bibliothque Franois Mitterand, and choose the Rue du Chevalaret
exit. Walk south along Rue du Chevalaret, and at the first junction turn backwards
right up rue Cantagruel. The Refuge is a few meters up on your right.
While in the neighborhood, you may want to visit the Bibliothque Franois Mitterand.

Cit de Refuge, Paris

Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret 1933

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Centre Pompidou (Pompidou Center)

19 rue Beaubourg
75004 Paris
France
Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers 1977

The Centre Pompidou is something of a victim of its own success. It was much
criticized for requiring temporary closure for a major renovation after only twenty
years' service, but this is at least mitigated by the volume of people it has been
required to host: over 25,000 per day, compared with the 5,000 anticipated. And if its
massive, brightly colored, maverick form looks less radical today, that's because of
how much its revolutionary hi-tech construction has been copied and extended.
The Centre Pompidou broke the mold with its 'inside out' construction: the steel
skeleton from which the floors are suspended dominantly visible from the outside,
together with the giant external escalators, with the color-coded service ducts
exposed on both the inside and out. Now that the fact of these appearances is no
longer shocking, attention focuses onhow they are done. Twenty years, on the
escalator remains a phenomenon, and the plaza continues to thrive, but the
exhibition spaces themselves, and the rather dry, regular block shape of the overall
building, are beginning to come across as almost a little dull.
Simon Glynn 2001

How to visit
Enter by the plaza, place Georges-Pompidou (but still known by its previous name,
place Beaubourg). To get there, take the Metro to Rambuteau (line 11) or Htel de
Ville (lines 1 and 11); or take the RER (suburban train) to Chtelet/Les Halles.
There is paid parking in both rue Beaubourg and rue des Halles.
Comprehensive visitor information, including opening times, is available in English at
the web site of the Centre national d'art et de culture at [Link].

Centre Pompidou, Paris

Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers 1977

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Le Grand Louvre
2 place du Palais Royal
Paris 1er
France
[Link] & Partners 1986

Whether people love or hate the pyramid which sits at the center of the Louvres
plaza, the projectas large in scope as the image of the pyramid is well known
ultimately has to be appreciated at least for what it has accomplished in practical
[Link] Louvre is the most famous of the Grands Projets (Mitterrands 15 billion
franc program to provide a series of modern monuments to symbolize Frances
central role in art, politics, and world economy at the end of the twentieth century).
It is not so much the pyramid, but the entrance space that it covers that is the most
important part of the project. The brilliance of making an entrance to the worlds
largest art museum by hollowing-out its plaza and constructing underground
connections to its various wings could easily be lost amidst the unmistakable
iconography of the pyramid. The entrance has rationalized and opened-up the
collections of the Louvre to the throngs of museum-goers who visit its collections.
In addition to the major undertaking in the plaza, collections were redistributed and
several courtyards were covered and refurbished. Throughout, the restrained
detailing of the stone walls and floors, simple geometries, and generously
proportioned spaces serve as an appropriate backdrop against both new and old.
The intricate steel connections and rods that support the pyramid are a twentieth
century expression equivalent to the ornate carving in the masonry facades of the
Palais du Louvre.
The project also included the construction of a shopping mall, cultural center, an
auditorium, and parking garages.
Jay Berman 1999

How to visit
Take the Metro (Lines 1 or 7) to the station Palais Royale Muse du Louvre, and
follow signs to the museum.
The museum is open every day except Tuesday.

Le Grand Louvre, Paris

I.M. Pei & Partners 1986

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Institut du Monde Arabe

11 quai Saint-Bernard
Paris 5e
France
Jean Nouvel 1987

The Institut du Monde Arabe (IMA) is the smallest of the Grands Projets (Mitterrands
15 billion franc program to provide a series of modern monuments to symbolize
Frances central role in art, politics, and world economy at the end of the twentieth
century), housing a library, exhibits, and other functions devoted to the relationship of
Arab culture with France. It is located along the Seine roughly at the boundary of
historical Paris and a more modern urban fabric to the southeast, the beginning of
which is marked by the university building at Jussieu.
Nouvel produces a wonderfully minimal composition of forms: a gently curving wall to
the north facing the Seine comes to a sharp and deep cleft as it meets a rectilinear
block which faces a large open plaza and the university buildings to the south.
Most notable, as we would expect from Nouvel, is the surface treatment. Along the
south facade the IMA reinterprets traditional Arab latticework screens in glass and
steel: 30,000 light-sensitive diaphragms are designed to regulate the penetration of
light into the building.
The unique use of high-tech photosensitive mechanical devices to control light levels
and transparencyas well as the beauty of the solutionmade this building famous
and piqued interest in the use of smart materials (which can respond to changing
environments) in buildings. The problem: the system no longer works. Nonetheless,
the south facade is quite beautiful. The striking south facade and the carefully
orchestrated sequence between the entrance onto the plaza and the entrance of the
building set up interesting scale relationships.
Jay Berman 1998

How to visit
Take the Metro lines 10 or 7 to Jussieu. Walk west on rue Jussieu, then north towards to the Seine - on rue des Fosses St Bernard.
The institute is open every day except Monday, between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., and
includes exhibitions and a rooftop restaurant.

Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris

Jean Nouvel 1987

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La Grande Arche de La Dfense

Paris La Dfense
France
Johan Otto von Spreckelsen 1989

Located just beyond the city limits, on the other side of the Seine from the 17th
arrondissement, the Grande Arche de La Dfense anchors the eastern end of the
historic axis that stretches from the Louvre down the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de
Triomphe.
One of the Grands Projets (Mitterrands 15 billion franc program to provide a series of
modern monuments to symbolize Frances central role in art, politics, and world
economy at the end of the twentieth century), the modern triumphal arch is actually a
35-story office buildinga monument to capitalism? The area surrounding La
Dfense is home to modern office towers housing 14 of Frances top 20 corporations.
Von Spreckelsens scheme was chosen by Mitterrand in an international competition
for its 'purity and strength'. Von Spreckelsen backed out of the project before its
completion, reportedly disheartened by red tape and having grown displeased with
his own design. He died before its completion.
Tourist guides tout the archs impressive dimensions and statistics: each side is
110m long; the arch contains 95,000 square meters of office space. It is clearly the
grandest and the most moderne of the Grands Projets. Amidst the superlatives, the
most pleasant aspect of the scheme is its surprising (and surprisingly subtle)
asymmetry; it is rotated six degrees off center of the axis, breaking the symmetry of
its position extending the line of the Champs Elyses. The rotation was not part of the
original design, but was done so that the piles supporting the structure could avoid
the network of tunnels under the site.
Jay Berman 1999

How to visit
Take the Metro (Line 1) or RER 'A' to the station Grande Arche de La
[Link] climb the imposing white bank of steps which forms part of the
arch's geometry, the angle and color of the steps reflected in the other three sides of
the square arch.
The sides of the arch are offices, but visitors can take a glass elevator through the
sculptural 'clouds' that hang within the arch's interior space, up to the belvedere. The
elevator is open between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m.

La Grande Arche, Paris

Johan Otto von Spreckelsen 1989

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Opra de la Bastille
Place de la Bastille
Paris 12e
France
Carlos Ott 1989

The result of a gigantic international competition, this building is one of the more
maligned of the Grands Projets (Mitterrands 15 billion franc program to provide a
series of modern monuments to symbolize Frances central role in art, politics, and
world economy at the end of the twentieth century).
Though not nearly as controversial as Peis pyramid at the Louvre, or as flashy as La
Dfense, after the dust settled, it was the designs deliberate anonymity that leaves
this building wanting. A bulky and unadventurous composition of gridded glass and
stone reminiscent of so many 1980s office buildings, the only controversy was the
choice of the design in the first place; it was by no means a unanimous choice out of
a field of 700 entries.
Its auditorium is very large (2,700 seats) and has been hailed as the hall to bring
opera to the masses.
Jay Berman 1998

How to visit
Take the Metro lines 1,5 or 8 to Bastille.

Opra de la Bastille, Paris

Carlos Ott 1989

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Htel Industriel
26 rue Brunesseau
75013 Paris
France
Dominique Perrault 1990

Perrault's Htel Industriel in the south of Paris is a highly successful combination of

transparency and minimalism. Perrault won the commission in competition, giving
him the opportunity to create this essential precursor to his Bibliothque Nationale
Franois Mitterand, which was completed five years later and a couple of blocks to
the North.
But whereas storing books behind glass walls in the Bibliothque has its practical
difficulties, the warehouses, workshops and offices in the Htel Industriel function
well, expressing their different characters through what they stack up on the internal
brise-soleil metal shelving which runs continuously round the building on the inside of
the glass.
Built in the unglamorous shadow of a junction in the priphrique, Paris's orbital
motorway, the Htel Industriel is part of an attempt to prevent the loss of industry
from the city to out-of-town sites. It houses about forty small industrial businesses, as
well as Perrault's own office.
Simon Glynn, 2001

How to visit
Rue Bruneseau runs south from boulevard Massna, cutting beneath the
priphrique between Porte d'Ivry and Porte de Bercy.
Take the RER to Boulevard Massna (line C), and head south to cross first the
railway line and then boulevard Massna (a fast, multilane road, but with traffic light
crossings).Alternatively, but involving a longer walk, take the Metro to Porte d'Ivry
(line 7) and head east along the boulevard Massna; rue Bruneseau runs to your
right immediately after crossing the railway line.
The building can be seen from the outside, but is a working building not open to the
public.

Htel Industriel, Paris

Dominique Perrault 1990

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Canal+
quai Andr-Citron and 2 rue des Cvennes
75015 Paris
France
Richard Meier and Partners 1992

The Canal+ headquarters in Paris is a commercial application of Meier's recipe of allwhite paneling, all-white detailing and glass. In this case the building houses studio
production facilities, in its east wing, and offices, in its west wing with views over the
Seine, for the commercial television company Canal+.
The result is an attractive commercial building, but not a show destination on a par
with Meier's museums (e.g. in Barcelona or Los Angeles) or private homes.
Simon Glynn, 2001

How to visit
Take the metro to Javel (line 10 or RER line C) and walk south down quai AndrCitron; or to Balard (line 8) and walk north up rue [Link] building is operated by
Canal+ (part of Vivendi Universal) and is not open to the public.

Canal+ Headquarters, Paris

Richard Meier and Partners 1992

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Parc Andr-Citron
quai Andr-Citron, rue Balard
75015 Paris
France
J-P Viguier, J-F Jodry, P Berger 1992

Parc Andr-Citron provides fourteen hectares of mostly green recreation space in

the middle of Paris, reclaimed from the industrial site of the former Citroen car plant.
It borders the Seine on the left bank, a few blocks south of the Eiffel Tower.
Within the park, different architects and landscape architects have contributed
different zones, creating an eclectic and attractive combination, ranging from glass
houses and strongly geometric planting to areas of wild flowers and weeds.
Architecturally the park is dominated by two large, dramatic glass houses, with an
area of computerized fountains between them.
Simon Glynn, 2001

How to visit
Take the metro to Javel (line 10 or RER line C) and walk south down quai AndrCitron; or to Balard (line 8) and walk north up rue Balard.
The park is open from dawn to 6 pm on weekdays, and from 9 am to 6pm on
weekends and holidays.

Parc Andr-Citron, Paris

Viguier, Jodry, Berger and others 1992

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Le Parc de la Villette
Porte de la Villette, avenue Jean-Jaurs
Paris
19eFrance
Bernard Tschumi 1993

The Parc de la Villette was developed as part of an urban renewal plan on the site
the former national meat market and slaughterhouse. Tschumi won a competition for
the design of Paris largest park in 1982.
Related to his theoretical work on event space, his proposal for a distinctly urban
park called for the deployment of a number of abstract, programless structures,
dubbed 'follies'. It was intended that the bright red structures would then house
various events and groups related to the activities of the park. Many do just that, but
not all, and not always the activities envisaged
.The design questions the conventional conception of a park as green open space.
While there is plenty of grass here, the natural park is clearly designed to express
the fact that it is artificial, domesticated. Several thematic gardens are incorporated
into the scheme, offering places of discovery and unexpected encounters and
juxtapositions between seemingly natural and man-made artifacts.
Jay Berman 1999

How to visit
Take the Metro (Line 7) to the station Porte de la Villette.

Le Parc de la Villette, Paris

Bernard Tschumi 1993

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American Center
51 rue de Bercy
Paris 12e
France
Frank Gehry and Associates 1994

The American Centers announcement in the mid 1980s of their plans to commission
and build Gehrys geometrically challenging building in Bercy was immediately met
with criticism. Skeptics felt that the buildings $41 million price tag posed too much of
a financial burden on the Centerwhose mission is to support cultural, educational,
and artistic activities. The Centers leadership, however, gambled that the new, highprofile facility would attract renewed interest in and donations
.Unfortunately for the American Center, operating costs and growing debt forced the
Centers board of directors to close the building in January, 1996, only 19 months
after it opened. The building has remained vacant since, though the French Ministry
of Culture announced plans to acquire the building for $21 million in July 1998 to
house the Maison du Cinema, a film library and theaters.
The architecture of the building might be understood best against the backdrop of
Gehrys struggles to build the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles (roughly concurrent
with the timeline of this project) and his eventual triumph at Bilbao. If Bilbaos is
definitively exuberant, the American Centers geometry seems almost
indeterminatesometimes masterful, other times awkward and circumstantial. Part of
this encompasses a struggle to square irregular geometry with ordinary office space
(which made up a substantial portion of the program). Part illustrates the intermediate
step that this building represents (somewhere between Disney and Bilbao) in the
development of a workable process to translate irregular designs into material
existence.
Jay Berman 1998

How to visit
Take the Metro to Bercy and walk south east on rue de Bercy.

American Center, Paris

Frank Gehry and Associates 1994

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Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain

261 boulevard Raspail
75014 Paris
France
Jean Nouvel, Emanuel Cattani et Associs 1994

Nouvel's gallery for the Fondation Cartier is an exercise in transparency and the
perennial quest to remove the barrier between inside and outside. A building 'box'
with glass walls would not do the trick: you could see through the walls, but you
would be clearly either inside or outside the box. In the Fondation Cartier Nouvel has
extended the glass walls beyond the box, creating extra tall glass planes in the wildflower garden, extending the glass facade several meters above the roof terrace, and
adding a whole disconnected glass plane as the street facade.
The excuse for this extra glass wall is a 200-year old, celebrated Lebanese cedar,
which is 'framed by two glass screens that form a gate:
'The sheet-glass facades of the building extend beyond its structure, blurring its boundaries and
denying the reading of a solid volume... The trees acquire a similarly ambiguous presence as it
is unclear whether they are inside or outside. The trees are read behind a transparent fence
instead of an opaque wall, and are embodied in the building by means of the 8-meter-high
sliding windows to the exhibition space which can be entirely removed in summer, undressing
the structure to reveal the columns. The building is a refracting series of superimpositions of
sky, trees and reflected trees. (Barbara-Ann Campbell)

Which would be fine, if the Fondation Cartier were a tree museum. For a contemporary art museum, however, it is hard to conceive of a less suitable design. At the
time of my visit, the main exhibition on the ground floor was composed entirely of
videos and other illuminated art works, requiring temporary walls inside the glass to
block out the transparency, or the exhibits would have been invisible.
The redeeming feature of this building is the elegant detailing of the rear faade..
Simon Glynn, 2001

How to visit
The Fondation Cartier is on the east side of the boulevard Raspail in the 14th
Arrondissement. Either walk North from Denfert-Rochereau (RER Line B or Metro
lines 4 and 6) or walk South from Raspail (Metro lines 4 and 6).
The exhibition floors are open to the public daily from 12 noon. To check for opening
times call for recorded information on +33 1 42 18 56 51. For other information call
+33 1 42 18 56 72.
The Foundation maintains a glitzy but uninformative web site, with English content, at
[Link]

Fondation Cartier, Paris

Jean Nouvel, Emanuel Cattani 1994

galinsky

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Bibliothque Nationale Franois Mitterand

12 quai Panhard-Levassor
Paris 13e
France
Dominique Perrault 1995

The newest of the Grands Projets (Mitterrands 15 billion franc program to provide a
series of modern monuments to symbolize Frances central role in art, politics, and
world economy at the end of the twentieth century) is also the largest. But, for its size,
it is also remarkable for the attention paid to its smaller, human-scaled details. The
architect has taken a reductively simple overall planfour 25-story L-shaped towers
of books (symbolizing open books) arranged at the corners of a giant platform around
a sunken gardenand used repetition necessary in even a much smaller building to
great effect.
The result is a deceptively ordinary building that is actually quite exceptional.
Walking toward the building along the Seine, one is first presented with an overscaled stair, similar to the one at the base of the Grande Arche. The first step on this
stair, leading to the top of a giant plinth on which the four towers sit, reveals the first
of many pleasant surprises: its material, which looks so solid and cold from a
distance, is wood. Indeed, a building whose primary materials are glass and steel
manages to be remembered by its rich wood and luxurious red carpet.
Outside, the wood decking of the platform and the wooden screens protecting the
books inside the four book towers provide texture and scale on what would otherwise
be a forbidding building-scape (even if the need for screens has brought into question
the original idea of storing books in transparent glass towers). Inside, a simple palate
of red carpet, wood, and steel are combined in enough ways to lend a sense of
cohesion and individuality to a large number of reading rooms arranged around the
central sunken garden.
Jay Berman 1999

How to visit
Take the RER to the Library's own station, Bibliothque Franois Mitterand.

Bibliothque Nationale, Paris

Dominique Perrault 1995