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The 20,000-year-old cave paintings of Lascaux are considered among the most important examples of Paleolithic art in the world, and one of the greatest treasures of European patrimony. The Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta, alongside scenographer Casson Mann, has designed a new museum for the... View full entry
It's a double-win for Studio Daniel Libeskind, who was recently selected to design two mixed-use projects in France: the Occitanie Tower in Toulouse and the East Thiers Train Station in Nice. The projects unveil a new development strategy for both cities that was set forth by commercial real... View full entry
Paris is not only the City of Lights, but also one of the great repositories of Brutalist buildings. "Brutalist Paris Map," a new architectural guide book put together by photographer Nigel Crow and edited by Robin Wilson of the Bartlett, marks the sixth in a series of publications touring various... View full entry
In the town of Marly-le-Roi, just outside of Paris, a new residential project by Karawitz Architects gives new meaning to the idea of curb appeal. Set on a leafy street lined with fenced-in houses, the Marly House strives to open up to the street through a series of innovative strategies. It still... View full entry
Situated in Carrière-Sous-Poissy in France along the River Seine, "Poissy Galore" by Armengaud Armengaud Cianchetta (AAC) and Herlach Hartmann Frommenwiler (HHF) is designed primarily as an ecological public space for both Parisian residents and far-flung visitors. Consisting of an observatory... View full entry
Take an abandoned industrial neighborhood in Bordeaux, France, affix a masterplan by urbanist Nicholas Michelin to it, and then add in an inventive cladding system over a 56-unit apartment building, and you have the fundamental makings of "Urban Dock," a recently completed project by Hamonic +... View full entry
Taking the view that the owner of the Philharmonie had modified and thus defiled his architectural work, Jean Nouvel had sued ... asking the court to order the owner to perform all works necessary for the restoration of his work so as to comply with the architectural plans he had initially drawn. [...]
The case at hand renews the debate on the difficulties of granting remedies which constitute an acceptable way to balance the proprietor's rights and the moral rights of architects.
— lexology.com
Get caught up on Nouvel's dispute with the Philharmonie:Jean Nouvel loses court case over 'sabotaged' Philharmonie de ParisJean Nouvel files for court order against Philharmonie de Paris disputeJean Nouvel boycotts opening of his Philharmonie de Paris View full entry
... the dual Canadian-American citizen expressed serious concerns about the incoming commander-in-chief.
“I don’t know whether we should get into politics here because some of you may think Trump is OK, but I’m very worried about him,” said Gehry, 87.
“I remember in 1937 and being in Canada and listening to Hitler’s speeches on radio – and this resounded similar to me. It’s just frightening.”
— ipolitics.ca
Quoted above from a recent discussion at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Frank Gehry told the audience that he was not leaving the U.S. for France, while facing the imminent future of a "frightening" Trump presidency. In a previous interview with Le Figaro, a French newspaper, Gehry had mentioned... View full entry
"Architects corrupt discourse, manipulate competition, make morality their banner and social responsibilities into an amulet or agit-prop," writes New-Territories, the constantly-mutating Bangkok-based, French-born architecture studio, previously known as R&Sie and elsewhere as M... View full entry
Frank Gehry has revealed that French president Francois Hollande has given him his word that he could self-exile to France now that Donald Trump has been elected the 45th President of the United States.
[...]
With the bleak prognostic becoming a reality, the starchitect might see himself emigrating to a new country, with a big welcome from its leader.
— artnet
Gehry said this during an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro, where he also railed against critics who don't consider him an artist, as well as most buildings. In fact, Gehry claims a correlation between people's ambivalence towards uninteresting architecture and support for... View full entry
They developed a succession of structures and styles that span many centuries and yet — magically, convincingly — cohere in a pleasing whole...Some of France’s greatest architects — Philibert Delorme, Ange-Jacques Gabriel and André Le Nôtre among them — fashioned buildings, courtyards, interiors and elaborate grounds...What greets the visitor today is the single greatest assemblage over time of French architecture and décor still in its original state. — NYT
Thad Carhart recently made the case that no site in France can compare as a royal residence, and serve as a testament to the classic ideals of French architecture and decorative arts.For more on Château de Fontainebleau see View full entry
[...] the stalagmite rings were older than any known cave painting. It also meant that they couldn’t have been the work of Homo sapiens. Their builders must have been the only early humans in the south of France at the time: Neanderthals.
The discovery suggested that Neanderthals were more sophisticated than anyone had given them credit for. They wielded fire, ventured deep underground, and shaped the subterranean rock into complex constructions.
— theatlantic.com
Related stories in the Archinect news:The Age of the Anthropocene: a change as big as "the end of the last ice age"A Man Renovating His Home Discovered A Tunnel... To A Massive Underground CityMassive tomb complex unearthed in Beijing suburb View full entry
Thanks to in situ artist Daniel Buren, the white glassy curved sails of the Gehry-designed Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris have received a generous splash of vibrant color — or 13 colors, to be exact...Developed in collaboration with Frank Gehry, Buren's temporary piece, titled “The Observatory of Light“, made its official debut this past Wednesday. It took 29 nights over a period of five weeks to apply the dyed filters and white 8.7 cm-wide strips throughout the building's 3,528 glass panes. — Bustler
Read more about Buren's intervention on Bustler. View full entry
This fall, the Jewish Museum will present what it’s billing as the first United States exhibition devoted to the work of Pierre Chareau, a French Modernist who for decades fell out of the mainstream history of art and architecture [...]
Chareau (1883-1950) was a prolific designer and art collector in France, and best known for his Maison de Verre (“Glass House”), a landmark building in Paris created in 1928 in collaboration with the Dutch architect Bernard Bijvoet...
— the New York Times
The exhibition, entitled "Pierre Chareau: Modern Architecture and Design", is the third exhibition in a trilogy of design exhibitions, following surveys of the work of Isaac Mizrahi and Roberto Burle Marx.The French architect and designer also had an impressive collection of art, which will be on... View full entry
Unveiled this week, the €1bn redevelopment is the largest infrastructure project that Paris has undertaken in decades, aiming to fix the messy tangle where Europe’s biggest underground station disgorges 750,000 passengers a day into a labyrinthine warren of shops [...]
It is hugely overwrought, the layered steel roof pulled to and fro in tortured twists and turns, forming a contorted rollercoaster of curved trusses and angled bracing...
— the Guardian
"The whole thing has a forlorn droop when seen from the west, as if sagging under the weight of expectation. Nor does the colour help. Ranging between sand and rancid butter depending on the light, the yellow steelwork casts a jaundiced pallor across the scene, lending the interiors a decidedly... View full entry
