ARCHITECTURE: Jean Nouvel
Making a tour in Paris nobody can ignore the French architect Jean Nouvel (12/8/1945- ), since he has designed and implemented three Museums in Paris: Institut du Monde Arabe, with which became internationally known, the Fondation Cartier and the Musée du quai Branly. He studied Architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and he is a member of Syndicat de l’Architecture sience 1976. He has obtained a number of prestigious distinctions over the course of his career, including the Wolf Prize in Arts in 2005 and the Pritzker Prize in 2008, for all of his work focused on museums, architectural centers and cultural sites such as his latest project the Philharmonie de Paris, which was completed recently.
By Efi Michalarou
By age 25, Nouvel completed school and entered into his own partnership with François Seigneur. Parents sent them work, and gave Nouvel a valuable recommendation to the chairperson of the seventh edition of the Biennale de Paris where for fifteen years, Nouvel designed exhibits and made contacts in the arts and theater. Early on in his career, became a key participant in intellectual debates about architecture in France: he co-founded the Mars 1976 movement in 1976 and, a year later, the Syndicat de l’Architecture. Nouvel, was one of the organizers of the competition for the rejuvenation of the Les Halles district (1977) and he founded the first Paris architecture biennale in 1980. In 1981, Nouvel won the design competition for the Institut du Monde Arabe (Arab World Institute) building in Paris, whose construction was completed in 1987 and brought Nouvel international fame. Mechanical lenses reminiscent of Arabic latticework in its south wall open and shut automatically, controlling interior lighting as the lenses’ photoelectric cells respond to exterior light levels. Nouvel had three different partners between 1972 and 1984: Gilbert Lezenes, Jean-François Guyot, and Pierre Soria. In 1985, with his junior architects Emmanuel Blamont, Jean-Marc Ibos and Mirto Vitart, he founded Jean Nouvel et Associés. Ateliers Jean Nouvel, his present practice, was formed in 1994 with Michel Pélissié and is one of the largest in France, with 140 people in the main office in Paris. Ateliers Jean Nouvel site offices are Rome, Geneva, Madrid and Barcelona, working at the same time 30 projects in 13 Countries. He was awarded the Pritzker Prize, architecture’s highest honour, in 2008, for his work on more than 200 projects, among them the “exotic” Arab World Institute, Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art (1994),”Musée du quai Branly (2006), the above have common references and principles that reflect the needs of his city. The recently completed Philharmonie de Paris, where aesthetics and materials refer to the Institute du Arabe and the Doha 9 skyscraper the Museum completed in Doha in 2012, since he seems to have embrace the architectural style of the East and introduces it directly and indirectly from his first project to date.
