Christian de Portzamparc

Christian de Portzamparc (Christian Urvoy de Portzamparc) is a Architecte and Urbaniste French born the May 9th 1944 with Casablanca with the Morocco, it passed its youth to Rennes.

In 1994, it was the first and to date the only French to receive the Prix Pritzker, kind of Nobel Prize of architecture. It received in 2004 the Grand Prix of town planning. His wife, Élizabeth de Portzamparc, is an architect famous.

Christian de Portzamparc studied with the Art schools 1962 with 1969, in particular in the workshop of Eugene Beaudouin. The discovery of the sketches of Le Corbusier pushed it to be directed towards a specialization in architecture. It however deviated as of this time from modernistic architecture inspired from the theories from Le Corbusier, estimating that one could not, at Paris, to make clean slate of the past.

It publishes in 2003 Voir to write , a book of discussions with the writer Philippe Sollers

He is also the first holder of the pulpit of “artistic creation” to the Collège de France. He gave his inaugural lesson on February 2nd, 2006 on the subject: “Architecture: figures of the world, figures of time”.

Beyond the traditional city and the great units: the open small island

One of the first illustrations of its ideas is the whole of social housing of the High-Forms, in the XIII {{E}} district of Paris. Whereas two turns were to be built on this site, the abandonment of the construction of buildings great height in Paris in 1974 modifies the project. Christian de Portzamparc decides to trace a street through the new district and to equip it with a small central place. He creates a series of buildings of size varied, less low in south-west in order to facilitate the entry of the sun. The openings are neat and the single plan is rejected with the profit of several models different of apartments according to the position in the whole of buildings. This whole of residences marks the end of the standardized architecture of the operation Italy 13.

After this first experiment, Portzamparc formalizes little by little the concept of the open small island during the years 1980. He opposes it to the two types of small islands which dominated architecture since the 19th century:

the block haussmannien which offers a continuous frontage on the street and, inside, is closed again on an interior court.
the open plan of the great units, in which the buildings are not directed any more compared to the streets.

The open small island gathers autonomous buildings around a traditional street. The height of the buildings is limited without being identical of one building to the other. The frontages are in general aligned on street but without continuity from one construction to another. Portzamparc rejects the joint ownership in order to create apartments equipped with exposure multiples and to create visual escapes inside the small island.

Its architectural designs retain haussmannism a hierarchisation between public spaces, semi-public and private, that the modernistic architecture of turns and bars on flagstone lost by rejecting the multifunctional traditional street. It does not take again however the rigor and the uniformity of the traditional frontages haussmanniennes, to which it prefers a certain lyricism, a “urban scrap-metal” characterized by the diversity of constructions.

It implements the concept of small island open to large scales within the framework of the operation Paris Left bank. The realization of the layout plans (dimensions and site of constructions) and the precise design of the buildings are entrusted to other architects, within the framework of the rules of construction which fixes Christian de Portzamparc. Its objective is to give to the district a character based on the alternation heights, colors, materials and architectural styles. It uses the metaphor of the “nature-dead”, who combines in a harmonious way of the objects different from/to each other.

Principal works

1971 - 1979: water tower with Marne-the-Valley
1979: together High-Forms, 209 social housing, Paris 13 {{E}}
1987: school of dance of the Opera of Paris, Nanterre
1988 - 1992: extension of the Museum Bourdelle, Paris
1989 - 1992: building of apartments, Nexus Workd, Fukuoka (Japan)
1990: residence Paul Riquet, Nanterre
1991 - 1994: building of residences, ZAC Bercy
1994: northern residence Park (aka MH51), Nanterre
1995: Quoted of the music, Paris 19 {{E}} (object of the Price of the Money Square)
1995: Turn of the Crédit Lyonnais as a whole Euralille, Lille
1999: Rehabilitation of the Palate of the Congresses of Paris 17 {{E}}
1999: turn LVMH, New York
2000: court of Fatty
2000: offices and studios of television, Boulogne-Billancourt
1996 - 2003: new philharmonic room. Luxembourg
2002: embassy of France with Berlin
2002 - 2007: Turn Granite for the General society, Paris Defense (in construction)
2002 - 2007: Cidade da musica, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
2004: sit of the Monde, Paris 13th
2006: Field-Free the, library, media library and planetarium, Rennes
2007 - 2009: Museum Hergé, Leuwen-the-New (Belgium) (fine of work envisaged at the end of 2009)

See too

External bonds

Agency Christian de Portzamparc
Christian de Portzamparc on ARCHIGUIDE
presentation of the architect on the site of the price Pritzker

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