(1942-2002)

On 2 February, the French architect Jacques Hondelatte suffered a heart attack from which he would not recover. Awarded in 1998 with the Grand Prix of Architecture, he was a tireless researcher and an enthusiastic designer, whose work was inscribed on the common ground where architecture, urbanism, landscape design, engineering and the fine arts meet to shape the contemporary city. Author of buildings such as the Gustave Eiffel Boarding School in Bordeaux – city in which he lived and worked – the Goubert School in Paris and the Fargues House, he became one of France’s most influential and respected architects. Passionate and relentless, Jacques Hondelatte chose to develop his work at bay from the passing formulae or trends of architecture’s recent scenario, an attitude he tried to pass on to his students at Bordeaux University, where he taught since 1985. Some of his most remembered buildings (the Bordeaux Courthouse and the Rodin Museum extension in Paris) remain unbuilt. In 2000, a retrospective exhibition of his work could be seen at the 7th edition of the Venice Biennial.