Architectures

The Picardy Museum in Amiens is a prototype. It was the first museum in France to be built as such. But its construction was no mean feat. The Museum was initially intended to be a "Little Louvre", a palace. It was only little by little, during the construction work that lasted a record 40 years, and after major questionings that the Museum triumphed over the Monument, and the architectural building adapted to its real function. A succession of seven architects brought the project to fruition, making it an anonymous work of art. Never aired. Directly published to DVD (Architectures vol.11).

Rem Koolhaas's Villa dall'Ava, a single-family dwelling, sets a fantastical imaginative enterprise in the bourgeois Paris suburb of Saint-Cloud. Rem Koolhaas's Villa dall'Ava, a single-family dwelling, sets a fantastical imaginative enterprise in the bourgeois Paris suburb of Saint-Cloud.

The Charlety Stadium's airy outline stands out in an otherwise densely urban area. Bruno and Henri Gaudin have broken with the classic design of a closed stadium, and created a bridge between Paris and its suburb.

A real / mock Middle Aged castle rebuilt by Viollet Le Duc for the Emperor Napoleon III. A reconstruction that paradoxically opened the way for modern architecture.

The Fort de France Education Authority is the only example of a contemporary architectural building in Martinique. It is also the only official building to be naturally ventilated by the trade winds. Taking on board both natural ventilation issues and the requirements of an architectural approach, Christian Hauvette has created a totally open building, in which the boundaries between exterior and interior are blurred.

There is no place here for the architect’s imagination or fantasy. The building is a manifestation of social administration. The La Santé Prison was built in Paris by Emile Vaudremer between 1861 and 1867. It was a model prison, at the forefront of incarceration theory, in which a marked obsession with physical and moral hygiene is evident. This modern prison, equipped with the most advanced equipment of its era, features a dark side of architecture: all pleasure is absent, and efficiency and control reign supreme.

The three-storey main building, known as the Heart of the School, houses classrooms, offices, the school library and a huge playground. Made entirely of bamboo - no concrete, metal or glass has been used in the building framework, floors and ceilings, walls, tables and chairs - it an inspirational example of eco-friendly architecture.

Dreamed up by the experimental, provocative Israeli designer Ron Arad, whose playful furniture designs featuring rounded, sculptural shapes have made him world famous, this startling construction swells, curves and winds its way through Médiacité, Liège's gigantic shopping centre, for over 350 metres. It is a covered mall - the main artery of a huge shopping centre built in 2009 to regenerate an abandoned industrial estate. At Médiacité, Arad has set out to conquer architecture, putting his ideas into practice on a bigger scale and reinvigorating the often criticised genre of retail architecture.