Architectures

In 1928, Pierre Chareau built the poetical and remarkable Maison de Verre, one of the unique buildings of the 20th century. Inserted into an existing building, the views dissolve through semi-transparent materials, juxtaposing metal and glass, almost taking it into the realms of Surrealism.

Built in 1050, the Abbey is one of the foremost pilgrim churches of the Christian world. This is rational, svelte and light-filled Romanesque architecture that is the work of Conques' monks who gained a solid reputation as builders during this time.

The Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao by Frank Gehry Known for his strange and deconstructed forms, Frank Gehry designed this monumental, but chaotic and abstract-looking sculpture in 1967. Covered in titanium. the curves on the building have been designed to appear random in order to catch the light.

At the end of the 18th century, Claude Nicolas Ledoux builds a monumental factory in Franche-Comté for the King of France. It is an aesthetic revolution, an innovative industrial site and the structuring core of an ideal city that will never come into being.

In 1953 French designer Jean Prouvé built "his" house whilst going through his worst life-crisis. Designed in haste, it embodies his most innovative ideas.

A glass cube built in Japan by Toyo Ito, the library provides an example of immaterial and evanescent architecture. The Mediatheque is located on a tree-lined avenue in Sendai, its transparent facade allowing for the revelation of diverse activities that occur within the building.