Jean Nouvel Architect France, Paris building photos, French architectural design studio news
Jean Nouvel Architects : Architecture
AJN: Contemporary French Architecture Practice – architect studio based in Paris
post updated 31 August 2024
31 August 2024
NMoQ – National Museum of Qatar building, Doha, Qatar
photo © Alex George
National Museum of Qatar
Ateliers Jean Nouvel News
Architecture News – latest additions to this page, arranged chronologically:
6 Sep 2021
HEKLA, La Défense, Paris, France
image © Ateliers Jean Nouvel
HEKLA Building, Paris La Défense Tower
HEKLA is the culmination of close collaboration between Ateliers Jean Nouvel for their talent and creativity, Hines and AG Real Estate for their experience in major commercial real estate projects, and Amundi Immobilier and Primonial REIM for their confidence and investment in the development of this emblematic project, alongside Bateg, a subsidiary of VINCI Construction France, the world’s leading construction firm.
1 Oct 2013
Burj Qatar, Doha, Qatar
Design: Ateliers Jean Nouvel
photo : CSCEC
The building envelope consists of two layers, a metal brise-soleil with an aluminium-and-glass curtain wall behind. The outer layer is inspired by “mashrabiya” screens found in traditional Islamic architecture, and which serve to protect from the sun’s heat and glare, and grant privacy.
1 Oct + 17 Sep 2013
Renaissance Barcelona Fira Hotel, Spain
photo © Ateliers Jean Nouvel
Emporis Skyscraper Award 2012 shortlisted
11 Apr 2013
Office for Living, Workplace Concept
image from architects
Office for Living
Jean Nouvel’s response to Cosmit’s commission for a huge project, tailored specifically to the Saloni and documenting the tremendous changes that have changed the face of living and work spaces alike over the past few years is “a project that frees up the office space, a counter to urban segregation and the zoning of other specially dedicated workplaces.”
19 Oct 2012
CTBUH Best Tall Building Worldwide 2012 – winner news – Doha Tower, Qatar
image Courtesy Ateliers Jean Nouvel (AJN)
CTBUH Best Tall Building Worldwide
This building design by French architect Jean Nouvel, was named Best Tall Building Worldwide by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. Doha Tower, which was first named the Best Tall Building in the Middle East and Africa, took the overall award out of the four regional winners. The building was honored for incorporating elements of traditional regional design with modern technologies to create an environmentally-sensitive icon for Qatar’s capital.
22 + 18 May 2012
Duo Towers, Paris, France
image © Ateliers Jean Nouvel
Duo Towers
Jean Nouvel will build the ‘Duo’ project on the Rive Gauche in Paris. The DUO project (‘B3A’) is located in Paris XIII (Masséna Bruneseau) for investor Ivanhoé Cambridge Hines the total cost is projected to be 500/600M€.
Ateliers Jean Nouvel – Recent Designs
26 Jan 2012
Tour Horizons, Paris, France
image © AJN
Tour Horizons
Tower building located in ZAC Seguin rive de Seine, Boulogne-Billancourt.
20 Jul 2011
Fondation Imagine, Paris, France
Ateliers Jean Nouvel / Valero Gadan
image © AJN / Valero Gadan
Fondation Imagine Paris
20 Jul 2011
RBC Design Center, Montpellier, France
image © AJN
RBC Design Center
19 Jul 2011
Bruxelles Gare du Midi, Belgium
image from AJN
Bruxelles Gare du Midi
13 Jun 2011
Musée du quai Branly, Paris, France – photos added
image © Rebecca Breun
Musée du quai Branly
30 Mar 2011
Sofitel Vienna Stephansdom, Austria – added
image : Philippe Ruault
Sofitel Vienna Stephansdom
Architecture is the art of taming constraints ; of poetizing contradictions ; of looking differently at common and trivial things in order to reveal their singularity. Architecture is an opportunity, in a city marked by history, to continue games begun by others years or centuries ago. It is a clever game of chance and intention ; an occasion to modify, to deepen, or to change the meaning of a context. Architecture is about making apparitions.
28 Mar 2011
The Philharmonie de Paris, Paris, France – start on site news
picture © AJN
Philharmonie de Paris
22 Mar 2011
Concert House Danish Radio Copenhagen
Mies van der Rohe Awards : 2011 Finalist
One New Change, London, England
image © Miller Hare Ltd
One New Change Building
15 Oct 2010
Manhattan residential tower
The award-winning French architect is about to leave his mark on the New York City skyline reports CBS.
The first is a residential tower on Manhattan’s West Side, with hundreds of irregularly-placed windows tilted at odd angles. Nouvel personally placed each window in the building. From the outside they’re designed to reflect the sun and the sky…from the inside, to frame the landscape.
“Here, of course, I wanted to catch all the panorama,” Jean said. In one bedroom he positioned a window so it could perfectly frame the Empire State Building: “It’s like a guardian during the night,” he said while reclining on a bed.
MoMA Tower:
image from Jean Nouvel Architects
The other New York project by Nouvel is a building that could rival the Empire State Building, a soaring skyscraper that one critic said “promised to be the most exhilarating addition to the skyline in a generation.”
“I try to play with the idea of a needle,” Jean said.
The tower would be built on a tiny lot next to the Museum of Modern Art. In the original design by AJN, the slender spire would have risen 75 stories, higher than the Chrysler Building and almost tall as the Empire State: “Which is precisely what bothers some people,” said Davidson. “For people who reacted negatively to the tower, it seemed arrogant.”
Community groups fought the project. New York, a city of skyscrapers, seemed to be afraid of heights: is the “building worthy of standing alongside the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building?” Anthony Mason asked. “I think so,” said Davidson. “It marks the period in which it’s being designed so dramatically.”
The architect has faced resistance before. There were questions about his striking Barcelona tower: “Maybe people think I am sexual obsessed with this building!” he laughed. “It’s not the case.” In fact, it was meant to echo the unusual rock pinnacles of nearby Montserrat.
And another Jean Nouvel skyscraper, the so-called “Tower Without End,” was never built, because of a housing slump in the nineties which left his Paris-based studio in bankruptcy. He says it wasn’t discouraging: “No, it’s not in my character.” The City Council finally gave the go-ahead to build – but only if Nouvel chops 200 feet off the top. “It’s very French to cut the head, eh?” Nouvel laughed. “A guillotine!”
So at his Paris studio, Jean has gone back to the drawing board, working on a redesign, while his residential tower opened this summer. “Do you like how it looks now?” he’s asked. “Yeah, I like that. Yes, it’s exactly what we wanted.”
His aim as an architect, Jean Nouvel says, is to give pleasure to people: “I think architecture has to be a gift.”
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, London, UK
images © AJN
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2010
Tour Signal, Paris, France
image from the architect
Tour Signal building : Temporary suspension of skyscraper design by Jean Nouvel
National Museum of Qatar Building, Qatar
image by Artefactory, © AJN
National Museum of Qatar Design
Pritzker Prize architects : 2008 Pritzker Prize winner
Jean Nouvel Buildings
Featured Buildings, alphabetical:
Abu Dhabi Louvre Museum Building, UAE
2009-
image courtesy of Gaston Bergeret
Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum Building
Agbar Tower, Barcelona, Spain
2004
photo © Adrian Welch
Agbar Tower : 142m high skyscraper
DR Byen, Copenhagen, Denmark
2007
Design: AJN + other architects
photo : dragoer luftfoto
DR Byen Copenhagen Building
Fondation Cartier, Paris, France
1995
Design: AJN + Emanuel Cattani et Associés
image © AJN ; photo : Philippe Ruault
Cartier Foundation Paris
Galeries Lafayette, Berlin, Germany
1996
Ateliers Jean Nouvel
photo © Adrian Welch
Galeries Lafayette Building
Guthrie Theatre, Minneapolis, USA
Date built: 1999-2006
Design: Ateliers Jean Nouvel + Architectural Alliance
photo © AJN ; photograph: Roland Halbe
Guthrie Theatre Minneapolis – no link
Hotel Puerta America, Madrid, Spain
Design: various interiors, various designers
image from Hotel Puerta America website
Hotel Puerta America
lnstitut du Monde Arabe, Paris, France
Date built: 1988
photo © Jean Nouvel ; photograph: Georges Fessy
Arab du Monde lnstitute Building
KölnTurm, Cologne, Germany
Date built: 2001
Jean Nouvel with Kohl & Kohl Architekten
photo © webbaviation
Cologne’s second tallest building
40 Mercer, Soho, New York, USA
Date built: 2001-07
Ateliers Jean Nouvel
photo © Jean Nouvel ; photo: Philippe Ruault
Soho apartment building for Andres Balazs
MoMA Extension – Tower, Manhattan, USA
2007-
image from Jean Nouvel Architects
MoMA New York tower : 75 storeys
National Music Centre – Shortlist, Canada
2009-
picture from CMF
Canadian National Music Centre, Calgary
Reina Sofía Extension, Madrid, Spain
Date built: 1999-2005
Design: AJN
photo © Jean Nouvel ; photo: Philippe Ruault
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
Walbrook Square, London, UK
Date: [2006-]
Design: Foster & Partners / AJN, Architects
image from Stanhope
Walbrook Square London : abandoned
More architecture projects by architect Jean Nouvel online soon
Location: Paris, France, western Europe.
Paris Architect Practice Information
Jean Nouvel (1945-) was born in Fumel, France
RIBA Gold Medal Winner in 2001.
Background
Architect Jean Nouvel opened his own architecture office in 1975. His architectural break came in 1981 when President Mitterand commenced his Grand Projets – major Parisian buildings – and by 1988 his lnstitut du Monde Arabe was complete. Its facade was unlike anything seen before and catapulted Nouvel into international architect stardom.
The architect:
photo from Hotel Puerta America
Paris architects : Design Studio
The Agbar Tower project in Barcelona reaffirmed his celebrity status once again. The design was compared to Foster & Partners‘ Swiss Re building of course, but in various articles it has been stated by the office of AJN that this is incidental.
Architecture Awards
Grand Prix d’Architecture – 1987
Aga Khan Award for Architecture – 1989
Royal Institute of British Architects: Royal Gold Medal for Architecture – 2001
Jean Nouvel Architect : further information
Zlaty Andel building aka The Golden Angel, Prague, Czech Republic
Website: www.jeannouvel.com
French Architectural Designs
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