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Despite its echoes of Paris’s architectural past, Frank Gehry’s latest museum project—the Fondation Louis Vuitton, opening this fall in the Bois de Boulogne—is like nothing the city has seen before: muscular and delicate, utilitarian and fantastic, a marriage of cultural ambition and private enterprise. Paul Goldberger looks at the genesis of LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault’s partnership with Gehry, and the triumphant result. — vanityfair.com
Previously: Gehry-designed Fondation Louis Vuitton to open this October View full entry
Sited at the heart of France's main business district at La Défense, the enormous and impressive Grande Arche was always more than a monument to the triumph of humanitarian ideals over military glory. [...]
A quarter of a century on, however, the crumbling state of La Grande Arche de la Défense might be a metaphor for France's struggling economy. [...]
The government has now promised €200m (£160m) worth of "important renovation work" [...] to begin in October and last for two years.
— theguardian.com
The top three winners of the Solar Decathlon Europe 2014 were recently announced during the awards ceremony this past weekend in Versailles, France. For two years, the 20 student teams worked to build a full-scale, fully functioning solar-powered house. — bustler.net
(Pictured above) 1st Place/Overall: "Rhome for Dencity" by Team Rhome (Universitá Degli Studi di Roma TRE)2nd Place: "Philéas" by Atlantic Challenge (Nantes, France)3rd Place: "A Home with a Skin" by Prêt-à-loger (TU Delft, The Netherlands)(Previously on Archinect)Head over to Bustler for more. View full entry
Book a trip to the Centre Pompidou in Paris this summer. The Centre is hosting the first major European retrospective of iconic French-Swiss architect and theorist Bernard Tschumi from April 30 to July 28, 2014.
Exploring Tschumi's work from 1975 to the present, the exhibition will feature a thematic arrangement of archival documents, films, and around 350 of his never-before-seen sketches, drawings, collages, and models -- all displayed in an installation he designed himself.
— bustler.net
"The exhibition at the Centre Pompidou — based on Bernard Tschumi’s work as an architect, educator, and writer — explores the making of architecture as a series of arguments, ideas, influences, and responses to the contemporary definition of architecture today."Get more details on Bustler. View full entry
The foundation stones were laid last weekend in Arles for an Arts Resource Centre designed by [...] Frank Gehry, which will be the centrepiece of the 20-acre Luma Arles campus. This hugely ambitious cultural project is driven by the Swiss pharmaceutical heiress and contemporary art collector Maja Hoffmann. At the groundbreaking ceremony, the mayor of Arles, Hervé Schiavetti, not only toasted the French Republic but also declared: “Vive Maja Hoffmann! Vive Frank Gehry!” — theartnewspaper.com
“Maja taught me about the region,” Gehry said at the press conference. “We talked about trying to evoke Van Gogh’s Starry Night.” Previously: Gehry's Luna Park Plan Put on Ice View full entry
The historic Grand Palais is due for a contemporary touch-up from French firm LAN, who recently won the competition to restructure and expand the monument...Looking beyond the museum's Beaux-Arts style, LAN highlights the museum's durability and flexibility in an effort to bring out the building's full potential. — bustler.net
Have a glimpse of LAN's winning proposal below:Drawings:Find out more on Bustler. View full entry
Vandals have smashed an ‘irreplaceable’ stained-glass window after breaking into Le Corbusier’s Ronchamp Chapel in eastern France.
The hand-painted, coloured glass window designed by the Swiss architect in the early 1950s was destroyed, it is understood, as the intruders forced entry into the famous Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut.
Once inside the vandals lifted a concrete collection box and threw it outside.
— Architect's Journal
The latest entry to add to our Europan 12 feature bundle is "On the move" from architectural collective Bluefoamit. The proposal won 2nd prize for the Rouen site in the French edition of E12. — bustler.net
Here's a preview: Learn all about the project at Bustler. View full entry
In the 13th Arrondisement in Paris, the brightly painted "Tour Paris 13" building -- is easy to spot from a distance. Described as the largest group exhibition of street art, Gallery Itinerance gathered over 100 urban artists representing 16 nationalities to use their artistic skills to repaint... View full entry
BIG is having a good week, now with another competition win to design the Museum of the Human Body in Montpellier, France.
The jury — led by City Mayor Ms Hélène Mandroux — selected BIG out of five international shortlisted teams. BIG collaborated on the design with A+Architecture + Egis + Base + L'Echo + Celsius Environnement + CCVH.
— bustler.net
All images courtesy of BIG (top four images by BIG + MIR). Head over to Bustler to read more. View full entry
French firm A+ Architecture has just been announced as the first-prize winner of the "Scène Campagne" competition. Led by the Communauté de Communes de Valcézard, A+ Architecture's winning proposal will soon be realized into a new cultural, economical, and social facility for the countryside village of Cornillon in Southern France. — bustler.net
A turn of events took place for Cité Radieuse in 2010, when the building’s rooftop gym and solarium went up for sale. Designer Ito Morabito, who goes by Ora-Ito, purchased it as a collector might. “Like you buy a piece of art, but architecture,” he noted. After the acquisition, it became Ora-Ito’s self-appointed mission to honor the iconic structure.
Ora-Ito transformed the rooftop of Cité Radieuse into MAMO, a contemporary art center dedicated to exhibitions and creative ateliers.
— knstrct.com
Paris-based architecture firm Jakob+MacFarlane designed this prefab tubular addition for the Regional Contemporary Art Fund Centre (FRAC) in Orleans, France, as a container for art collections and place for architectural experimentation. The fluid addition to the 19th century building was just completed and it will be inaugurated on September 14th. — Inhabitat
Anya Sirota + AKOAKI, a design studio based in Michigan, has installed two monumental stars in a defunct tannery in Amilly, France. Titled POP IT UP, the installation is open to the public through September 29, 2013. — bustler.net
French designer Ora-Ïto is converting the famous Marseille roof terrace into a haven for contemporary art — guardian.co.uk
