Jean Nouvel

On October 25, in a ceremony graced by the Emperors Japan, the Japan Art Society gave the Praemium Imperiale awards for painting, sculpture, music, theater, and architecture. The awardees were the Korean painter Lee Ufan, the French sculptress Marta Pan, the American musician Ornette Coleman, his playwright compatriot Arthur Miller, and the French architect Jean Nouvel. Born in 1945 in Fumel, the Paris-based Nouvel became known in the eighties through works like the Institut du Monde Arabe and the Némausus housing development. He would consolidate his fame in the course of the following decade and become the principal representative of the immaterial and mediatic current of French architecture, through projects like the remodeling of Lyon’s opera house and the Cartier Foundation, which use glass, steel, and aluminum in a manner that is technically refined but sensitive to the particularities of the place. Nouvel’s field of action is now worldwide. The Museum of Primitive Arts in Paris, the Dentsu headquarters in Tokyo, and the JVC business center in Guadalajara, Mexico testify to this.