Grands Projets of François Mitterrand
Encyclopedia
The Grands Projets of François Mitterrand
(variants: Grands Travaux or Grands Projets Culturels; officially: Grandes Operations d'Architecture et d'Urbanisme) was an architectural program to provide modern monuments in Paris, the city of monuments, symbolizing France’s role in art, politics, and economy at the end of the 20th century. The program was initiated by the 21st President of France while he was in office. Mitterrand viewed the civic building projects, estimated at the time to cost the Government of France
15.7 billion francs, both as a revitalisation of the city, as well as contemporary architecture compatible with Socialist Party
politics. The scale of the project and its ambitious nature was compared to the major building schemes of Louis XIV.
This grandiose plan, commencing in 1982, was termed as a “testament to political symbolism and process” launched in the post-World War II
France, as an exercise in urban planning. The Grands Projets, described as "eight monumental building projects that in two decades transformed the city skyline", included Louvre Pyramid
, Musee d'Orsay
, Parc de la Villette
, Arab World Institute
, Opéra Bastille
, Grande Arche de La Défense
, Ministry of Finance and the Bibliothèque nationale de France
, the last and most expensive of the lot. The projects did not all begin under Mitterrand—the Musee d'Orsay, the La Defense Arch, and La Villette commenced under his predecessor, President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing
– but they are attributed to Mitterrand as they radically changed form under him.
Mitterrand drew his inspiration for the Grands Projets from President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing
's Centre Georges Pompidou
of the late 1970s. The Centre Georges Pompidou
was the result of an architectural design competition
in 1971 which selected a team comprising Italian
architect Renzo Piano
, the British
architect couple Richard Rogers
and Su Rogers, Gianfranco Franchini, the British structural engineer Edmund Happold
(who would later found Buro Happold
), and Irish
structural engineer Peter Rice
. Reporting on Rogers' winning the Pritzker Prize
in 2007, The New York Times
noted that the design of the Centre "turned the architecture world upside down". The Pritzker jury said the Pompidou "revolutionized museums, transforming what had once been elite monuments into popular places of social and cultural exchange, woven into the heart of the city." Mitterrand, seeing the passion that went into the building project and a will to produce the best possible buildings pursued his Grands Projets based on similar architectural competitions which would attract architects from a wide field to develop the city to its architectural potential.
In 1977, the government made the decision to renovate the Gare d'Orsay
(Orsay train station) into the Musée d'Orsay
. The Italian architect Gae Aulenti
oversaw the design of the conversion from 1980 to 1986. The work involved creating 20000 square metres (23,919.8 sq yd) of new floorspace on four floors. The new museum was opened by Mitterrand on 1 December 1986, and even though it began before he took office, the work is attributed as one of his Grands Projets.
, located in northeastern Paris, now includes a science museum and an exhibition hall. A project titled "Parc de la Villette" was launched in 1979 to create a national park with a music centre and a museum devoted to science and technology. The project is spread over an area of 55 acres (22.3 ha). In an international competition held in 1982 in which 460 teams from 41 countries participated, Bernard Tschumi, a French
architect of Swiss
origin, was chosen as the architect to build the complex, in March 1983. The objective was to make Parc de la Villette an artistic, cultural and popular centre in Paris. Tschumi designed the park from 1984 to 1987 on the site of the former Paris
ian abattoirs, which had been built in 1867 by Napoleon III and demolished and relocated in 1974. The park project was successfully completed in stages with the gardens of the Park and the Maison de la Villette getting established in October 1987, the Music and Dance centres in 1990, Music and Concert Halls inaugurated in January 1995 and Music Museum inaugurated in January 2000. It now hosts the annual Open-Air Film Festival.
Grande Arche de La Défense located at the northern terminus of the Grand Louvre–Place de la Concorde
–Champs-Elysées
–Arc de Triomphe
axis, emphasizes its importance as France’s financial capital. The name is derived from the La Défense de Paris monument which was built in 1870 as a commemorative building to mark the 1870 War. It was planned to be built on a flat plain land across the Seine River from the Bois de Boulogne
.
A great national design competition
involving some 400 entrants was launched in 1982 under the initiative of Mitterrand to design the Grande Arche de La Défense
. Danish
architect Johann Otto von Spreckelsen
(1929–1987) and Danish engineer Erik Reitzel
designed the winning entry to be a 20th-century version of the Arc de Triomphe
: a monument to humanity and humanitarian ideals rather than military victories. The construction of the monument began in 1985 and Mitterrand personally saw that the largest crane in Europe was brought in to build it. Spreckelsen resigned on July 1986 and ratified the transfer of all his architectural responsibilities to his associate, French architect Paul Andreu
. Reitzel continued his work until the monument was completed in 1989. The Arche is almost a perfect cube (width: 108 metres (354.3 ft), height: 110 metres (360.9 ft), depth: 112 metres (367.5 ft)); it has been suggested that the structure looks like a four-dimensional hypercube
(a tesseract
) projected onto the three-dimensional world. It has a prestressed concrete
frame covered with glass
and Carrara
marble
from Italy
and was built by the French
civil engineering company Bouygues
. La Grande Arche was inaugurated on 14 July 1989, with grand military parades that marked the bicentennial of the French revolution
and completed the line of monuments that forms the Axe historique
running through Paris.
redesign and expansion plan of the Musée du Louvre, adding an entrance within the Louvre Pyramid
, commissioned by Mitterrand in 1984. Mitterrand insisted on personally inspecting the materials that were used during the construction of the Louvre pyramid, from its glass panels to its steel girders, something which struck the architect as unusual at his degree of interest.
is located on Rue des Fossés Saint Bernard and constructed from 1981 to 1987 with a floor space of 181850 square feet (16,894.4 m²). Jean Nouvel
, together with Architecture-Studio
, won the 1981 design competition
. The building acts as a buffer zone between the Jussieu Campus
, in large rationalist blocks, and the Seine
. The building houses a museum, library, auditorium, restaurant, and offices. Above the glass-clad storefront, a metallic screen unfolds with moving geometric motifs. The motifs are actually 240 motor-controlled apertures, which open and close every hour. They act as brise soleil
to control the light entering the building. The mechanism creates interior spaces with filtered light — an effect often used in Islamic architecture
with its climate-oriented strategies. This building catapulted Nouvel to fame and is one of the cultural reference points of Paris, receiving the Aga Khan Award for Architecture
. Located on the left bank of the Seine River, in the heart of historic Paris, Arab World Institute, a bold expression of "architecture of glass and metal", where other buildings such as the Paris Mosque
, other institutions, buildings and places that mark milestones in the exchanges between the Arab world and France, is described as "modern architectural symbol of dialogue between Western culture and the Arab world."
at the Place de la Bastille
, in the 12th arrondissement in 1984 with the demolition of the Gare de la Bastille
, which had closed in 1969. The building was designed by a Uruguayan-Canadian Carlos Ott
who had won a competition. The building was inaugurated on 13 July 1989, on the 200th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille
, with a gala concert conducted by Georges Prêtre
and featuring singers such as Teresa Berganza
and Plácido Domingo
. However, it did not see its first opera performance until 17 March 1990, with Berlioz
' Les Troyens
, directed by Pier Luigi Pizzi
. As of now, it is the largest opera house in Paris with 30 floors (10 floors in the basement), with each floor of 22000 square metres (26,311.8 sq yd) area, with corridors to the extent of 45 kilometres (28 mi) in the building. It has backstage areas, workshops, and other essential infrastructure facilities. Its decors are fixed on carriers that run on tracks. These are moved to the stages in a few minutes (using elevators) which facilitates concurrent rotating performances to be held. The main hall contains 2700 seats. It cost 2.8 billion francs to build. The railway station and the bridge that existed here have become part of the "Promenade Plantée", an elevated parkway that extends over many kilometres to the city limits on the east.
. It extends down to the Seine and was the result of a 1982 competition. A national competition was held with entrants providing building designs for 225000 square metres (269,097.8 sq yd) of office space which would constitute a "grand gesture". Height restrictions of the time precluded the construction of a tower on the narrow site that was T-shaped and split in two by the Rue de Bercy Paul Chemetov was the winning designer. Built in 1988, Building A and Building B bridge over the Rue de Bercy. At 70 metres (229.7 ft) in length, six levels each span over Quai de la Rapee. The building is nicknamed the "steamboat" because of its extreme length. A viaduct
became a principal building facade with a moat separating the buildings from the boulevard. The Ministère des Finances building received mixed reviews, including a comparison to Fascist
and Stalinist architecture
, or a motorway tollgate
.
was the last and most costly of the Grands Projets built in Paris. It consists of four 25-story L-shaped towers representing open books, "arranged at the corners of a giant platform around a sunken garden". After the move of the major collections from the Rue de Richelieu, the National Library of France was inaugurated on 15 December 1996 and today contains more than ten million volumes. Construction of the library ran into huge cost overruns and technical difficulties related to its high-rise design, so much so that it is commonly referred to as the "TGB" or "Très Grande Bibliothèque" (i.e. "Very Large Library," a sarcastic allusion to France's successful high-speed rail system, the TGV
).
, in Nouméa
, New Caledonia
, Melanesia
is the only one of the Grands Projets built outside of France. It was built on the site of the Festival Melanesia 2000, which occurred 25 years earlier. It was designed by the Italian architect, Renzo Piano
.
, the centre was not built due to cost overruns of the Bibliothèque nationale.
Considered expensive and controversial, Frommer's
said "The majority were considered controversial or even offensive when completed". Mitterrand's projects have been criticised as being empire-building, as well as compromising the "fabric" of Paris. Public taxes had to be raised to finance the project, amounting to a massive 4.6 billion euros derived from taxes.
The library was strongly criticised by the French press and has suffered since from "tremendous operational problems" and maintenance issues.
François Mitterrand
François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand was the 21st President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra, serving from 1981 until 1995. He is the longest-serving President of France and, as leader of the Socialist Party, the only figure from the left so far elected President...
(variants: Grands Travaux or Grands Projets Culturels; officially: Grandes Operations d'Architecture et d'Urbanisme) was an architectural program to provide modern monuments in Paris, the city of monuments, symbolizing France’s role in art, politics, and economy at the end of the 20th century. The program was initiated by the 21st President of France while he was in office. Mitterrand viewed the civic building projects, estimated at the time to cost the Government of France
Government of France
The government of the French Republic is a semi-presidential system determined by the French Constitution of the fifth Republic. The nation declares itself to be an "indivisible, secular, democratic, and social Republic"...
15.7 billion francs, both as a revitalisation of the city, as well as contemporary architecture compatible with Socialist Party
Socialist Party (France)
The Socialist Party is a social-democratic political party in France and the largest party of the French centre-left. It is one of the two major contemporary political parties in France, along with the center-right Union for a Popular Movement...
politics. The scale of the project and its ambitious nature was compared to the major building schemes of Louis XIV.
This grandiose plan, commencing in 1982, was termed as a “testament to political symbolism and process” launched in the post-World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
France, as an exercise in urban planning. The Grands Projets, described as "eight monumental building projects that in two decades transformed the city skyline", included Louvre Pyramid
Louvre Pyramid
The Louvre Pyramid is a large glass and metal pyramid, surrounded by three smaller pyramids, in the main courtyard of the Louvre Palace in Paris. The large pyramid serves as the main entrance to the Louvre Museum...
, Musee d'Orsay
Musée d'Orsay
The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the left bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, an impressive Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture,...
, Parc de la Villette
Parc de la Villette
The Parc de la Villette is a park in Paris at the outer edge of the 19th arrondissement, bordering the Boulevard Périphérique, which is a ring road around Paris, and the suburban department of Seine-Saint-Denis.-History:...
, Arab World Institute
Arab World Institute
The Institut du Monde Arabe or Arab World Institute , in English, was established in 1980 in Paris, when 18 Arab countries concluded an agreement with France to establish the Institute to disseminate information about the Arab world and set in motion detailed research to cover Arabic and the Arab...
, Opéra Bastille
Opéra Bastille
L'Opéra Bastille ' is a modern opera house in Paris, France. It is the home base of the Opéra national de Paris and was designed to replace the Palais Garnier, which is nowadays mainly used for ballet performances....
, Grande Arche de La Défense
Grande Arche
La Grande Arche de la Défense is a monument and building in the business district of La Défense and in the commune of Puteaux, to the west of Paris, France...
, Ministry of Finance and the Bibliothèque nationale de France
Bibliothèque nationale de France
The is the National Library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine.-History:...
, the last and most expensive of the lot. The projects did not all begin under Mitterrand—the Musee d'Orsay, the La Defense Arch, and La Villette commenced under his predecessor, President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing
Valéry Marie René Georges Giscard d'Estaing is a French centre-right politician who was President of the French Republic from 1974 until 1981...
– but they are attributed to Mitterrand as they radically changed form under him.
History
Built between 1981 and 1998, the Grands Projets were constructed of similar materials, in less than two decades, within an urban landscape, and displaying related ideologies. Several of the monuments would display transparency, reflection, and abstract form. Considered to be visible, durable and controversial elements of Mitterrand's years in office, the Grands Travaux or Grands Projets Culturels, were officially known as the Grandes Operations d'Architecture et d'Urbanisme. Francois Mitterrand's Socialist government of the 1980s was strongly focused on promoting culture, and it was one of the centrepieces of his regime. Mitterrand's government allocated more money into art than had ever been seen in the past or since. They were commissioned to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution.Mitterrand drew his inspiration for the Grands Projets from President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing
Valéry Marie René Georges Giscard d'Estaing is a French centre-right politician who was President of the French Republic from 1974 until 1981...
's Centre Georges Pompidou
Centre Georges Pompidou
Centre Georges Pompidou is a complex in the Beaubourg area of the 4th arrondissement of Paris, near Les Halles, rue Montorgueil and the Marais...
of the late 1970s. The Centre Georges Pompidou
Centre Georges Pompidou
Centre Georges Pompidou is a complex in the Beaubourg area of the 4th arrondissement of Paris, near Les Halles, rue Montorgueil and the Marais...
was the result of an architectural design competition
Architectural design competition
An architectural design competition is a special type of competition in which an organization or government body that plans to build a new building asks for architects to submit a proposed design for a building. The winning design is usually chosen by an independent panel of design professionals...
in 1971 which selected a team comprising Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
architect Renzo Piano
Renzo Piano
Renzo Piano is an Italian architect. He is the recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, AIA Gold Medal, Kyoto Prize and the Sonning Prize...
, the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
architect couple Richard Rogers
Richard Rogers
Richard George Rogers, Baron Rogers of Riverside CH Kt FRIBA FCSD is a British architect noted for his modernist and functionalist designs....
and Su Rogers, Gianfranco Franchini, the British structural engineer Edmund Happold
Edmund Happold
Professor Sir Edmund Happold , better known as Ted Happold, was a structural engineer and founder of Buro Happold.- Career :...
(who would later found Buro Happold
Buro Happold
Buro Happold is a professional services firm providing engineering consultancy, design, planning, project management and consulting services for all aspects of buildings, infrastructure and the environment, with its head office in Bath, Somerset...
), and Irish
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
structural engineer Peter Rice
Peter Rice
Peter Rice was an Irish structural engineer.Born in 52 Brigid Street, Dundalk in County Louth, he spent his childhood between the town of Dundalk, and the villages of Gyles' Quay and Inniskeen. He was educated at the Queen's University of Belfast where he received his primary degree, and spent a...
. Reporting on Rogers' winning the Pritzker Prize
Pritzker Prize
The Pritzker Architecture Prize is awarded annually by the Hyatt Foundation to honour "a living architect whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built...
in 2007, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
noted that the design of the Centre "turned the architecture world upside down". The Pritzker jury said the Pompidou "revolutionized museums, transforming what had once been elite monuments into popular places of social and cultural exchange, woven into the heart of the city." Mitterrand, seeing the passion that went into the building project and a will to produce the best possible buildings pursued his Grands Projets based on similar architectural competitions which would attract architects from a wide field to develop the city to its architectural potential.
Musee d'Orsay
Gare d'Orsay
Gare d'Orsay is a former Paris railway station and hotel, built in 1900 to designs by Victor Laloux, Lucien Magne and Émile Bénard; it served as a terminus for the Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans . It was the first electrified urban rail terminal in the world, opened 28 May 1900, in time for the...
(Orsay train station) into the Musée d'Orsay
Musée d'Orsay
The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the left bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, an impressive Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture,...
. The Italian architect Gae Aulenti
Gae Aulenti
Gae Aulenti is an Italian architect, lighting and interior designer, and industrial designer. She is well known for several large-scale museum projects, including Musée d'Orsay in Paris , the Contemporary Art Gallery at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Palazzo Grassi in Venice , and the Asian Art...
oversaw the design of the conversion from 1980 to 1986. The work involved creating 20000 square metres (23,919.8 sq yd) of new floorspace on four floors. The new museum was opened by Mitterrand on 1 December 1986, and even though it began before he took office, the work is attributed as one of his Grands Projets.
Parc de la Villette
Parc de la VilletteParc de la Villette
The Parc de la Villette is a park in Paris at the outer edge of the 19th arrondissement, bordering the Boulevard Périphérique, which is a ring road around Paris, and the suburban department of Seine-Saint-Denis.-History:...
, located in northeastern Paris, now includes a science museum and an exhibition hall. A project titled "Parc de la Villette" was launched in 1979 to create a national park with a music centre and a museum devoted to science and technology. The project is spread over an area of 55 acres (22.3 ha). In an international competition held in 1982 in which 460 teams from 41 countries participated, Bernard Tschumi, a French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
architect of Swiss
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
origin, was chosen as the architect to build the complex, in March 1983. The objective was to make Parc de la Villette an artistic, cultural and popular centre in Paris. Tschumi designed the park from 1984 to 1987 on the site of the former Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
ian abattoirs, which had been built in 1867 by Napoleon III and demolished and relocated in 1974. The park project was successfully completed in stages with the gardens of the Park and the Maison de la Villette getting established in October 1987, the Music and Dance centres in 1990, Music and Concert Halls inaugurated in January 1995 and Music Museum inaugurated in January 2000. It now hosts the annual Open-Air Film Festival.
Grande Arche de La Défense
Place de la Concorde
The Place de la Concorde in area, it is the largest square in the French capital. It is located in the city's eighth arrondissement, at the eastern end of the Champs-Élysées.- History :...
–Champs-Elysées
Champs-Élysées
The Avenue des Champs-Élysées is a prestigious avenue in Paris, France. With its cinemas, cafés, luxury specialty shops and clipped horse-chestnut trees, the Avenue des Champs-Élysées is one of the most famous streets and one of the most expensive strip of real estate in the world. The name is...
–Arc de Triomphe
Arc de Triomphe
-The design:The astylar design is by Jean Chalgrin , in the Neoclassical version of ancient Roman architecture . Major academic sculptors of France are represented in the sculpture of the Arc de Triomphe: Jean-Pierre Cortot; François Rude; Antoine Étex; James Pradier and Philippe Joseph Henri Lemaire...
axis, emphasizes its importance as France’s financial capital. The name is derived from the La Défense de Paris monument which was built in 1870 as a commemorative building to mark the 1870 War. It was planned to be built on a flat plain land across the Seine River from the Bois de Boulogne
Bois de Boulogne
The Bois de Boulogne is a park located along the western edge of the 16th arrondissement of Paris, near the suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt and Neuilly-sur-Seine...
.
A great national design competition
Architectural design competition
An architectural design competition is a special type of competition in which an organization or government body that plans to build a new building asks for architects to submit a proposed design for a building. The winning design is usually chosen by an independent panel of design professionals...
involving some 400 entrants was launched in 1982 under the initiative of Mitterrand to design the Grande Arche de La Défense
Grande Arche
La Grande Arche de la Défense is a monument and building in the business district of La Défense and in the commune of Puteaux, to the west of Paris, France...
. Danish
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
architect Johann Otto von Spreckelsen
Johann Otto von Spreckelsen
Johann Otto von Spreckelsen was a Danish architect.He was born in Viborg and studied at the Viborg Katedralskole and Royal Academy of Arts in Copenhagen, and later served as director up to his death....
(1929–1987) and Danish engineer Erik Reitzel
Erik Reitzel
Erik Reitzel was for many years a professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and at the Technical University of Denmark, in the disciplines of bearing structures and structural design....
designed the winning entry to be a 20th-century version of the Arc de Triomphe
Arc de Triomphe
-The design:The astylar design is by Jean Chalgrin , in the Neoclassical version of ancient Roman architecture . Major academic sculptors of France are represented in the sculpture of the Arc de Triomphe: Jean-Pierre Cortot; François Rude; Antoine Étex; James Pradier and Philippe Joseph Henri Lemaire...
: a monument to humanity and humanitarian ideals rather than military victories. The construction of the monument began in 1985 and Mitterrand personally saw that the largest crane in Europe was brought in to build it. Spreckelsen resigned on July 1986 and ratified the transfer of all his architectural responsibilities to his associate, French architect Paul Andreu
Paul Andreu
Paul Andreu is a renowned French architect. He is best known for having planned numerous airports worldwide, notably Ninoy Aquino International Airport , Soekarno-Hatta International Airport , Shanghai Pudong International Airport Abu Dhabi International Airport, Dubai International Airport,...
. Reitzel continued his work until the monument was completed in 1989. The Arche is almost a perfect cube (width: 108 metres (354.3 ft), height: 110 metres (360.9 ft), depth: 112 metres (367.5 ft)); it has been suggested that the structure looks like a four-dimensional hypercube
Hypercube
In geometry, a hypercube is an n-dimensional analogue of a square and a cube . It is a closed, compact, convex figure whose 1-skeleton consists of groups of opposite parallel line segments aligned in each of the space's dimensions, perpendicular to each other and of the same length.An...
(a tesseract
Tesseract
In geometry, the tesseract, also called an 8-cell or regular octachoron or cubic prism, is the four-dimensional analog of the cube. The tesseract is to the cube as the cube is to the square. Just as the surface of the cube consists of 6 square faces, the hypersurface of the tesseract consists of 8...
) projected onto the three-dimensional world. It has a prestressed concrete
Prestressed concrete
Prestressed concrete is a method for overcoming concrete's natural weakness in tension. It can be used to produce beams, floors or bridges with a longer span than is practical with ordinary reinforced concrete...
frame covered with glass
Glass
Glass is an amorphous solid material. Glasses are typically brittle and optically transparent.The most familiar type of glass, used for centuries in windows and drinking vessels, is soda-lime glass, composed of about 75% silica plus Na2O, CaO, and several minor additives...
and Carrara
Carrara
Carrara is a city and comune in the province of Massa-Carrara , notable for the white or blue-grey marble quarried there. It is on the Carrione River, some west-northwest of Florence....
marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
from Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and was built by the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
civil engineering company Bouygues
Bouygues
Bouygues S.A. is a French industrial group headquartered in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France. Bouygues is listed on Euronext Paris exchange and is a blue chip in the CAC 40 stock market index. The company was founded in 1952 by Francis Bouygues and since 1989 has been led by his son Martin...
. La Grande Arche was inaugurated on 14 July 1989, with grand military parades that marked the bicentennial of the French revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
and completed the line of monuments that forms the Axe historique
Axe historique
The Axe historique is a line of monuments, buildings and thoroughfares that extends from the centre of Paris, France, to the west. It is also known as the "Voie Triomphale" ....
running through Paris.
Louvre Pyramid
Monumental in scope and public in purpose, the best-known of the Grands Projets is the I. M. PeiI. M. Pei
Ieoh Ming Pei , commonly known as I. M. Pei, is a Chinese American architect, often called a master of modern architecture. Born in Canton, China and raised in Hong Kong and Shanghai, Pei drew inspiration at an early age from the gardens at Suzhou...
redesign and expansion plan of the Musée du Louvre, adding an entrance within the Louvre Pyramid
Louvre Pyramid
The Louvre Pyramid is a large glass and metal pyramid, surrounded by three smaller pyramids, in the main courtyard of the Louvre Palace in Paris. The large pyramid serves as the main entrance to the Louvre Museum...
, commissioned by Mitterrand in 1984. Mitterrand insisted on personally inspecting the materials that were used during the construction of the Louvre pyramid, from its glass panels to its steel girders, something which struck the architect as unusual at his degree of interest.
Arab World Institute
The Arab World InstituteArab World Institute
The Institut du Monde Arabe or Arab World Institute , in English, was established in 1980 in Paris, when 18 Arab countries concluded an agreement with France to establish the Institute to disseminate information about the Arab world and set in motion detailed research to cover Arabic and the Arab...
is located on Rue des Fossés Saint Bernard and constructed from 1981 to 1987 with a floor space of 181850 square feet (16,894.4 m²). Jean Nouvel
Jean Nouvel
Jean Nouvel is a French architect. Nouvel studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was a founding member of Mars 1976 and Syndicat de l'Architecture...
, together with Architecture-Studio
Architecture-Studio
Architecture-Studio is a French Architect's office created in 1973 in Paris.The Seat of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, the Arab World Institute in Paris , the church Notre-Dame-de-l'Arche-d'Alliance in Paris are through the best known realisation of the Architecture-Studio.-Associates:*...
, won the 1981 design competition
Architectural design competition
An architectural design competition is a special type of competition in which an organization or government body that plans to build a new building asks for architects to submit a proposed design for a building. The winning design is usually chosen by an independent panel of design professionals...
. The building acts as a buffer zone between the Jussieu Campus
Jussieu Campus
The Jussieu Campus is a higher education campus located in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, France, which is the main campus of the Pierre and Marie Curie University ....
, in large rationalist blocks, and the Seine
Seine
The Seine is a -long river and an important commercial waterway within the Paris Basin in the north of France. It rises at Saint-Seine near Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plateau, flowing through Paris and into the English Channel at Le Havre . It is navigable by ocean-going vessels...
. The building houses a museum, library, auditorium, restaurant, and offices. Above the glass-clad storefront, a metallic screen unfolds with moving geometric motifs. The motifs are actually 240 motor-controlled apertures, which open and close every hour. They act as brise soleil
Brise soleil
Brise soleil, sometimes brise-soleil , from French, "sun breaker"), in architecture refers to a variety of permanent sun-shading techniques, ranging from the simple patterned concrete walls popularized by Le Corbusier to the elaborate wing-like mechanism devised by Santiago Calatrava for the...
to control the light entering the building. The mechanism creates interior spaces with filtered light — an effect often used in Islamic architecture
Islamic architecture
Islamic architecture encompasses a wide range of both secular and religious styles from the foundation of Islam to the present day, influencing the design and construction of buildings and structures in Islamic culture....
with its climate-oriented strategies. This building catapulted Nouvel to fame and is one of the cultural reference points of Paris, receiving the Aga Khan Award for Architecture
Aga Khan Award for Architecture
The Aga Khan Award for Architecture is an architectural prize established by Aga Khan IV in 1977. It aims to identify and reward architectural concepts that successfully address the needs and aspirations of Islamic societies in the fields of contemporary design, social housing, community...
. Located on the left bank of the Seine River, in the heart of historic Paris, Arab World Institute, a bold expression of "architecture of glass and metal", where other buildings such as the Paris Mosque
Paris Mosque
The Grande Mosquée de Paris , located in the 5th arrondissement, is the largest mosque in France and the third largest in Europe. It was founded after World War I as a sign of France's gratefulness to the colonies's Muslim tirailleurs, 100,000 of whom died fighting against Germany...
, other institutions, buildings and places that mark milestones in the exchanges between the Arab world and France, is described as "modern architectural symbol of dialogue between Western culture and the Arab world."
Opéra Bastille
Construction began on the Opéra BastilleOpéra Bastille
L'Opéra Bastille ' is a modern opera house in Paris, France. It is the home base of the Opéra national de Paris and was designed to replace the Palais Garnier, which is nowadays mainly used for ballet performances....
at the Place de la Bastille
Place de la Bastille
The Place de la Bastille is a square in Paris, where the Bastille prison stood until the 'Storming of the Bastille' and its subsequent physical destruction between 14 July 1789 and 14 July 1790 during the French Revolution; no vestige of it remains....
, in the 12th arrondissement in 1984 with the demolition of the Gare de la Bastille
Gare de La Bastille
Gare de La Bastille was a railway station in Paris. The station was opened in 1859 and served as the terminus of the -long line to Vincennes and Verneuil-l'Étang. The line was opened only to serve the Fort de Vincennes, and was extended to La Varenne and later to Brie-Comte-Robert. The line finally...
, which had closed in 1969. The building was designed by a Uruguayan-Canadian Carlos Ott
Carlos Ott
Carlos Ott is a Uruguayan architect who resides in Canada. He became famous when he won the first prize in 1983 for the construction of the Opéra de la Bastille in Paris, which was inaugurated on July 14, 1989...
who had won a competition. The building was inaugurated on 13 July 1989, on the 200th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille
Storming of the Bastille
The storming of the Bastille occurred in Paris on the morning of 14 July 1789. The medieval fortress and prison in Paris known as the Bastille represented royal authority in the centre of Paris. While the prison only contained seven inmates at the time of its storming, its fall was the flashpoint...
, with a gala concert conducted by Georges Prêtre
Georges Prêtre
- Biography :He was born in Waziers , and attended the Douai Conservatory and then studied harmony under Maurice Duruflé and conducting under André Cluytens among others at the Conservatoire de Paris. Amongst his early musical interests were jazz and trumpet. After graduating, he conducted in a...
and featuring singers such as Teresa Berganza
Teresa Berganza
Teresa Berganza, born on March 16, 1935), is a Spanish mezzo-soprano. She is most closely associated with the roles of Rossini, Mozart, and Bizet. She is admired for her technical virtuosity, musical intelligence and beguiling stage presence.- Biography :...
and Plácido Domingo
Plácido Domingo
Plácido Domingo KBE , born José Plácido Domingo Embil, is a Spanish tenor and conductor known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range...
. However, it did not see its first opera performance until 17 March 1990, with Berlioz
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...
' Les Troyens
Les Troyens
Les Troyens is a French opera in five acts by Hector Berlioz. The libretto was written by Berlioz himself, based on Virgil's epic poem The Aeneid...
, directed by Pier Luigi Pizzi
Pier Luigi Pizzi
Pier Luigi Pizzi is an Italian opera director, set designer, and costume designer.-Biography:Pizzi was born in Milan, Italy, and earned a degree in architecture at the Politecnico of Milan...
. As of now, it is the largest opera house in Paris with 30 floors (10 floors in the basement), with each floor of 22000 square metres (26,311.8 sq yd) area, with corridors to the extent of 45 kilometres (28 mi) in the building. It has backstage areas, workshops, and other essential infrastructure facilities. Its decors are fixed on carriers that run on tracks. These are moved to the stages in a few minutes (using elevators) which facilitates concurrent rotating performances to be held. The main hall contains 2700 seats. It cost 2.8 billion francs to build. The railway station and the bridge that existed here have become part of the "Promenade Plantée", an elevated parkway that extends over many kilometres to the city limits on the east.
Ministère des Finances et de l'Économie
The Ministère des Finances et de l'Économie building is located at 1 Boulevard de BercyBercy
Bercy is a neighborhood in the 12th arrondissement of Paris. It is the city's 47th administrative neighborhood. -History:Some of the oldest vestiges of human occupation in Paris were found on the territory of Bercy, dating from the late Neolithic . The name of Bercy, or Bercix, appeared for the...
. It extends down to the Seine and was the result of a 1982 competition. A national competition was held with entrants providing building designs for 225000 square metres (269,097.8 sq yd) of office space which would constitute a "grand gesture". Height restrictions of the time precluded the construction of a tower on the narrow site that was T-shaped and split in two by the Rue de Bercy Paul Chemetov was the winning designer. Built in 1988, Building A and Building B bridge over the Rue de Bercy. At 70 metres (229.7 ft) in length, six levels each span over Quai de la Rapee. The building is nicknamed the "steamboat" because of its extreme length. A viaduct
Viaduct
A viaduct is a bridge composed of several small spans. The term viaduct is derived from the Latin via for road and ducere to lead something. However, the Ancient Romans did not use that term per se; it is a modern derivation from an analogy with aqueduct. Like the Roman aqueducts, many early...
became a principal building facade with a moat separating the buildings from the boulevard. The Ministère des Finances building received mixed reviews, including a comparison to Fascist
Fascist architecture
Rationalist-Fascist architecture was an Italian architectural style developed during the fascism regime and in particular starting from the late 1920s. It was promoted and practiced initially by the Gruppo 7 group, whose architects included Luigi Figini, Guido Frette, Sebastiano Larco, Gino...
and Stalinist architecture
Stalinist architecture
Stalinist architecture , also referred to as Stalinist Gothic, or Socialist Classicism, is a term given to architecture of the Soviet Union between 1933, when Boris Iofan's draft for Palace of the Soviets was officially approved, and 1955, when Nikita Khrushchev condemned "excesses" of the past...
, or a motorway tollgate
Toll road
A toll road is a privately or publicly built road for which a driver pays a toll for use. Structures for which tolls are charged include toll bridges and toll tunnels. Non-toll roads are financed using other sources of revenue, most typically fuel tax or general tax funds...
.
Bibliothèque nationale de France
Opened in 1996, the Bibliothèque nationale de FranceBibliothèque nationale de France
The is the National Library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine.-History:...
was the last and most costly of the Grands Projets built in Paris. It consists of four 25-story L-shaped towers representing open books, "arranged at the corners of a giant platform around a sunken garden". After the move of the major collections from the Rue de Richelieu, the National Library of France was inaugurated on 15 December 1996 and today contains more than ten million volumes. Construction of the library ran into huge cost overruns and technical difficulties related to its high-rise design, so much so that it is commonly referred to as the "TGB" or "Très Grande Bibliothèque" (i.e. "Very Large Library," a sarcastic allusion to France's successful high-speed rail system, the TGV
TGV
The TGV is France's high-speed rail service, currently operated by SNCF Voyages, the long-distance rail branch of SNCF, the French national rail operator....
).
Tjibaou Cultural Centre
The Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural CentreJean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre
The Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre, on the narrow Tinu Peninsula, approximately northeast of the historic centre of Nouméa, the capital of New Caledonia, celebrates the vernacular Kanak culture, the indigenous culture of New Caledonia, amidst much political controversy over the independent...
, in Nouméa
Nouméa
Nouméa is the capital city of the French territory of New Caledonia. It is situated on a peninsula in the south of New Caledonia's main island, Grande Terre, and is home to the majority of the island's European, Polynesian , Indonesian, and Vietnamese populations, as well as many Melanesians,...
, New Caledonia
New Caledonia
New Caledonia is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and about from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of...
, Melanesia
Melanesia
Melanesia is a subregion of Oceania extending from the western end of the Pacific Ocean to the Arafura Sea, and eastward to Fiji. The region comprises most of the islands immediately north and northeast of Australia...
is the only one of the Grands Projets built outside of France. It was built on the site of the Festival Melanesia 2000, which occurred 25 years earlier. It was designed by the Italian architect, Renzo Piano
Renzo Piano
Renzo Piano is an Italian architect. He is the recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, AIA Gold Medal, Kyoto Prize and the Sonning Prize...
.
Centre International de Conferences
The Centre International de Conferences was to be the last of the Grands Projets. Designed by Francis Soler, 1990 winner of the Grand Prix national de l'architectureGrand prix national de l'architecture
The Grand Prix national de l'architecture is a French prize awarded by a jury of twenty persons under the chairmanship of the Ministry of Culture to an architect, or an architectural firm, for recognition of an outstanding contribution to architecture. Established in 1975 and relaunched in 2004,...
, the centre was not built due to cost overruns of the Bibliothèque nationale.
Reaction and criticism
While an initial negative reaction to the Grands Projets viewed it as a continuation of the traditional east/west shift in Paris power, a shift in viewpoint occurred after some time. This resulted after many of the projects were constructed on the working-class eastern side of Paris, and the projects brought a re-emphasis to the Seine.Considered expensive and controversial, Frommer's
Frommer's
Frommer's is a travel guidebook series and one of the bestselling travel guides in America. The series began in 1957 with the publication of Arthur Frommer's book, Europe on $5 a Day. Frommer's has expanded to include over 350 guidebooks across 14 series, as well as other media including the award...
said "The majority were considered controversial or even offensive when completed". Mitterrand's projects have been criticised as being empire-building, as well as compromising the "fabric" of Paris. Public taxes had to be raised to finance the project, amounting to a massive 4.6 billion euros derived from taxes.
The library was strongly criticised by the French press and has suffered since from "tremendous operational problems" and maintenance issues.