Along the banks of the Rhône and Saône rivers in Lyon stands an unmissable new tower designed by the famed architect Jean Nouvel. The 16-story building's pastel-colored facades and angular parapet present a stark contrast to the tower's more traditional industrial and residential apartment block neighbors.
The neighborhood of La Confluence is transforming into an area filled with contemporary architecture, quite a change from its history as a formerly industrial area. Amid this graying backdrop, the new residential tower, called Ycone, gently adds a tone of color and material richness.
Nouvel has shared with the media, “the result, seen from outside, will depend on the set of constraints that get revised, adjusted, and embellished, if possible, by the story that’s brought us here.”
Stephan Novakovic of Azure Magazine notes: "Compared to the drama of many of Nouvel’s recent projects–including the newly completed National Museum of Qatar–Ycone’s subtlety is a change of pace. In a fast-growing urban district already replete with loud designs, the project also stands apart for its quieter character, revealed through the gradual variations that play out across its liminal space."
I want to like this for its complexity and delicacy. It would look much better in a natural setting, with lawns to set it off, trees to communicate with its intricacies. Still, it looks too intricate from a distance, maybe flimsy, and scale seems off for a sixteen-story building.
The two block buildings around it set it to disadvantage, and there is no coherent scheme to the area—see the aerial above. Then look at other buildings nearby:
Lyon is starting to look like Coney Island.
All 9 Comments
Is ambivalence okay?
Nouvel whiffed on this one.
Arguing subjective aesthetics instead of the substantive aspects of the building - environmental performance, social / cultural responsiveness.
FAIL
The former is unaddressed, the latter is up to $1100/sq.ft.
When will they remove the scaffolding?
I want to like this for its complexity and delicacy. It would look much better in a natural setting, with lawns to set it off, trees to communicate with its intricacies. Still, it looks too intricate from a distance, maybe flimsy, and scale seems off for a sixteen-story building.
The two block buildings around it set it to disadvantage, and there is no coherent scheme to the area—see the aerial above. Then look at other buildings nearby:
Lyon is starting to look like Coney Island.
It's hard to hate a building that tries so hard to be interesting, as wasteful as it looks.
Part Deux
Actually I'd say this is a much more interesting version of a similar idea.
It's good.
That Qatari Museum feels a little questionable, but this is good.
Actually, I rather like the Jakob + Macfarlane green and orange cubes. They are fresh and vibrant. I could see a whole series of the same or similar lining the waterfront. Which is the point—the area needs coherent planning. Everything else looks like it has just been stuck there, including, especially, the Nouvel.
The museum looks like a squatting bug.
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