SO-IL FREAKS freearchitects   France   The Northern Vosges Regional Natural Park encompasses about a hundred French municipalities and one is Meisenthal, also known for its glassworks. The outcome of a 2015 competition, the project carried out by the New York firm SO-IL and the Paris stud

Tadao Ando   France   The château La Coste Winery is located 15 kilometers north of the old town area of Aix-en-Provence in southern France. The project included the restructuring of the complex to transform it into a garden museum dotted with outdoor sculptures and pavil

Tadao Ando   France   This space was designed as a commemorative project for the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of the UNESCO. The brief requested a ‘space of meditation’ for global peace, transcending all religions. The pavilion is located within the complex o

David Chipperfield   France   The Préfecture de Paris, a building that originally constructed in the 1960s that housed the city administration, was situated on the banks of the River Seine. The existing ensemble comprised a 16-storey tower flanked by two 9-storey wings, which for

Nieto Sobejano   France   The firm led by Fuensanta Nieto and Enrique Sobejano, which runs offices in Madrid and Berln, has landed first prize in the competition to build the new Museum of Fine Arts of the city of Vannes, in Brittany, with Richard Faure as associate architect

Jean-Christophe Quinton   France   In the heart of the 6th arrondissement of Paris, at 12 Rue Jean-Bart, this 8-unit apartment building includes a daycare facility. With its massing and layout, it completes the front of a typical Parisian city block. Vertical openings and the use of l

Oscar Niemeyer   France   Almost a decade after his death, the pavilion designed by Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012) for the Château La Coste vineyard in the French region of Provence has been inaugurated. Opened to the public in 2011, this hidden estate is also home to one of the

Grand Huit   France   A work of Grand Huit – a cooperative of architects led by Julia Turpin, Marine Kerboua, and Clara Simay –in collaboration with the landscaper Melanie Drevet, this project is part of an effort to mobilize residents and neighborhood associations in the

Studio Muoto   France   Ubicado en los históricos jardines de Versalles, el conjunto escolar evoca el rigor técnico y la optimización formal de los invernaderos. En su cubierta integra un pequeño jardín hortícola que sirve como herramienta pedagógica y favorece la biodivers

Studio Muoto   France   The structural scheme of the building, five supports arranged in a cross plan from which the different levels hang, organizes the interior spaces and frees the ground floor to shape a cubic and glazed volume suspended among the trees...

Studio Muoto   France   The project is located in the up and coming district of Cambarérès, the new urban center devoted to innovation in Montpellier. The tech hall will host young developing companies and encourage a multi-disciplinarian approach to creation. The building

RAUM   France   The French firm headed by Julien Perraud, Benjamin Boré, and Thomas Durant, RAUM, has built this culture facility on Rue des Pierre Blanches in Saint Jean de Boiseau, a city 13 kilometers from Nantes. Combining terracotta, exposed concrete, and wood,

Foster + Partners   France   Located close to the Canal de la Robine, a museum rises like a temple consecrated to the Roman heritage of a city which was an important node in the network of roads of Gaul. The main spaces are organized in a single level on a plinth, under the prot

Foster + Partners   France   The design unveiled by the British architect Norman Foster shows a desire for it to respectfully blend in with the gently rolling hills around. The tarracotta-tiled vaulted roof presents a timber structure with a 40-meter...

Kengo Kuma   France   The building rises from the ground as a continuation of the metropolitan park, creating an observation platform over the garden and the road. Inside it will house a conference center and two hotels that aim to connect people and revitalize the new di

K architectures Sigwalt Herman   France   The French city of Béziers was founded around 700 B.C. and went through different periods in which it was occupied by Gauls and Romans, who contributed to forming its identity. Carried out by K architectures, the Paris practice of Karine Herman and J

Kengo Kuma   France   The project called to build a contemporary gallery to protect the western portal of the Gothic cathedral of Angers, where precious polychromatic sculptures from the 12th and the 17th centuries have been recently discovered. To create a harmonious dia

estudioHerreros   France   The Mistral residential complex is part of EuroMed, a mixed-use development built in Mar-seille on the grounds of the old port. In accordance with the masterplan, the complex pre-sents an urban scheme of a certain density; an intermediate volume made

Bast   France   With the idea of enlarging their current residence, a building set between party walls, the clients acquired the property adjacent to their rear patio, and the result is an elongated complex facing two streets, with a central courtyard linking the tw

Amelia Tavella Architectes   France   Amelia Tavella has renovated and extended a convent on her native island, Corsica, turning it into a cultural center for the town of of Sainte-Lucie de Tallano. Immersed in a mountainous landscape, the Convent of Sainte-François, built in 1480, was a

O&O Baukunst Bruther   France   The strict structural rhythm creates a module capable of accommodating different programs –housing, garages, and public or commercial spaces– and offers the possibility of reversing all of them to in the future adapt them to the needs of the campus..

Tank Architectes   France   The French firm TANK, headed by Olivier Camus and Lydéric Veauvy, designed this complex of 55 housing units wrapped in pinewood. The simple volume is part of a larger residential development that also includes a building by Agence Guervilly. The co

SANAA   France   Fifteen years and 280 French companies have taken part in the reconstruction, reshaping, and renovation of La Samaritaine in Paris. The history of this department store dates back to 1870, when Ernest Cognacq opened at the junction of Pont-Neuf and M

CNN   Tamara Hardingham-Gill   Paris is already home to some of the most popular attractions in the world, and the French capital could be about to get its very first urban cable car. Proposed plans for a brand new 4.5 kilometer-long aerial tramway connecting various suburbs in th

As it was for the likes of Gertrude Stein or Sidney Bechet, France was the main scene of the life of Paul Nelson. Attracted to the artistic circles that made Paris a party in the 1920s, the young man born in Chicago moved to the French capital to com

The latest film of Wes Anderson (Houston, 1969) pays a unique tribute to the golden years of independent journalism, and in particular to The New Yorker, of which the Anderson is a self-declared fan since his teens. Set in the newsroom of an American

Libération   Construction of Herzog & de Meuron’s ‘Triangle’ is to begin in Paris at the end of the year, after 15 of legal battles. The tower will be the tallest to go up in Paris since 1973. Building work is programmed for completion in 2026... Libération:

On view through 22 February at the Centre Pompidou in Paris is an exhibition that delves into the refreshingly refined graphic humor of Saul Steinberg, the brilliant Romanian American cartoonist who gave a new twist to illustration and the journalist

Exactly sixty years after their first installation in Paris – a barricade of barrels denouncing the then recently erected Berlin Wall – Christo and Jeanne-Claude return, albeit posthumously, to the city where they first met. The object this time is t

The Guardian   Kim Willsher   Operation combining art and engineering on a massive scale fulfils dream of late artist couple. Shortly after the sun rose over central Paris, the first of the orange-clad rope technicians hopped over the top of the Arc de Triomphe and began to absei

Isabelle Regnier   In 1997, Frank Gehry opened with his Guggenheim of Bilbao a new chapter of the history of architecture and city-building: the irruption of spectacular buildings designed by star architects to harbor private institutions, with which municipal councils

The Guardian   Kim Willsher   The Arc de Triomphe in Paris will be swathed in silvery blue fabric and red rope as a posthumous project planned by the artist Christo since the early 1960s finally becomes reality. Work will begin next month on L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped, a €14m ins

One of the features of the modern legacy – the legacy that nourishes our architecture and which we have yet to regard with the necessary impartiality – was the vituperation of rhetoric. In other words: the search for a ‘minor’ tone to apply to the so

1923-2020 The Hungarian-born French architect and urban planner Yona Friedman – perhaps the last of the great utopian masters of the 20th century – passed away in Paris on 21 February 2020 at the age of 96. After World War II, when being Jewish almos

Enrique Sobejano   I. A light volume of metal panels supported by thin columns rises in the middle of a dense forest facing the sea, allowing large pine trees to pass through the structure and continue to grow, in an unusual inversion of the image of the cabin suspende

The Art Newspaper   Gareth Harris   The architect Frank Gehry will unveil his latest blockbuster building—a soaring twisting geometric tower covered with 11,000 stainless steel panels—at Luma Arles this summer, the 27-acre cultural campus in the southern French town of Arles spearheade

François Chaslin   There are moments when it feels like we are at a turning point. Moments in which the insight and ingenuity of certain architects, their perseverance, the determination of a few builders, and certain changes in the collective imagination open up other

The Hyatt Foundation has selected Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal as the 2021 winners of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the accolade it has been giving every year since 1979, coming with an award of US$100,000 (84,000 euros). Chaired by Ale

The Guardian   Kim Willsher   The Pompidou Centre, one of Paris’s top cultural attractions and home to Europe’s biggest modern art collection, is to close from 2023 for four years of renovations, France’s culture minister has said. Designed by architects Renzo Piano and Richard R

The Guardian   Kim Willsher   Mayor Anne Hidalgo gives green light to £225m-scheme to transform French capital’s most famous avenue.  The mayor of Paris has said a €250m (£225m) makeover of the Champs-Élysées will go ahead, though the ambitious transformation will not happen befo

In collaboration with local firms PPA Architectures and Taillandier Architectes Associés, Rotterdam-based Office for Metropolitan Architecture has built MEETT, the city of Toulouse’s new convention and exhibition center. With its 155,000 square meter

Eduardo Prieto   “May you live in interesting times”: the curse that has fallen upon us resembles the one that befell Europeans in the 1930s. The 1937 Paris International Exposition was the last major cosmopolitan event held in Europe before the apocalypse, and desp

The Madrid partners Fuensanta Nieto and Enrique Sobejano, in collaboration with the Parisian firm Marin+Trottin, finished first in the bid to design the Cité du Théâtre in Paris, carrying the day over the other two finalists, Foster+Partners and Fabr

Six months before dying in poverty, the visionary French architect Jean-Jacques Lequeu (1757-1826), after failing to find a buyer, donated hundreds of his drawings to the Bibliothèque nationale de France. His detailed works describe all sorts of them

François Chaslin   On 5 April death befell the French architect Bernard Schoeller, known for his work in the studio of the Arsène-Henry brothers, with whom he carried out a lot of social housing as well as the third of the skyscrapers at La Défense in Paris: the 100-me

Philippe Rahm   Comment le climat, les épidémies et l'énergie ont façonné la ville et les bâtiments

Renzo Piano Richard Rogers   Genoa  2017  
Fondazione Renzo Piano   - 248 Pages 

Francesco Dal Co   Renzo Piano, Rchard Rogers and the Makin of a Modern Monument

Walter Benjamin   Madrid  2013  
Abada Editores   - 1666 Pages 

José Ramón Alonso Pereira   Barcelona  2015  
Reverté   - 320 Pages 

Lia Piano   Génova  2014  
Fondazione Renzo Piano   - 196 Pages 

RCR Arquitectes   Rodez  2014  
RCR Bunka   - 110 Pages 

2009

Larry Busbea   The Urban Utopia in France, 1960-1970

Walter Benjamin   Cambridge (Mass)  1999  
Harvard University Press   - 1074 Pages 

Jean-Louis Cohen Monique Eleb Antonio Martinelli   París  2000  
Norma Editorial   - 288 Pages