1938-2018

The architect Paul Andreu passed away on 11 October. He was a great specialist in infrastructures and directed one of the largest French studios, and with greater international presence. Trained at the École Polytechnique, where he graduated in 1961, Andreu began a very successful career after winning in 1967 the competition for the construction of Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Roissy (Paris), a work that showed for the first time the virtues – mastery in functional planning, powerful language, technical skill – of an architect who would be called on more and more to take part in competitions and international commissions for large infrastructures. The Jakarta, Abu Dhabi, and Cairo airports are examples of this activity, as is that of Orly. Andreu redefined the contemporary airport type, but that wasn’t his only contribution to architecture. His capacity to create strong images in a language that could be defined as ‘technoeclectic’ also brought him jobs with a monumental nature, some as important as L’arche de la Défense in Paris or the National Grand Theater of China.