"Cultivate our characters to avoid standardising and shrinking the world".
The 2008 Pritzker Prize winner's playground is vast, from the recent Duo Towers dominating eastern Paris to the Louvre des Antiquaires in the historic heart of Paris, via China and the United States. Interview.
After the Covid-19 crisis, have you seen a change in management expectations regarding the use of towers?
Above all, I saw that working conditions were changing. There is a temptation to move, to leave the big cities, and we realise that the office world is going to change. In the future, there will probably be fewer hours and days worked in Paris. It will be the big cities and the countryside, not one or the other. This development has totally changed the very idea of service work, with all the advantages and disadvantages that we all know. To put it bluntly, nobody bothers you at home, but real collaboration is disappearing.
What do three of your latest Parisian projects, located in La Défense (Tour Hekla), in the historic city centre (Louvre Saint-Honoré) or in a district undergoing total conversion (Tours Duo in Bruneseau), have in common?
There is a common denominator: all these projects are intended to enrich Paris. Touching on Paris's heritage and converting historic buildings should help to instil a second culture, while at the same time highlighting the original architecture, and I would even say Paris as a whole. I think that all Parisian architects should have this ambition!
Don't towns with a strong heritage stifle creativity too much?
Germans are more aware of what makes the German city unique, of its urban culture. And not just in Berlin, which has nevertheless done a great deal of work, more so than Paris, including in the suburbs. In France, things are more chaotic. The problem today is that most cities tend to resemble each other, as can be seen from what is happening in the inner and outer suburbs, with an architecture based on planning and urban globalisation. This aesthetic, these models, are going to standardise and shrink the world! In Europe, it is in our interest to cultivate our characters, as we have a very strong historical heritage. Let's cultivate our differences, as Barcelona, Madrid and certain Italian cities are doing. We need to play to our strengths, and Paris has many! Parisian buildings have a tremendous urban history, which we need to accentuate. It's the duty of developers, architects, mayors, artists and others to ensure that their cultural and heritage dimension continues.
Madrid is very attractive to employees from Berlin, London and Paris. What do you think makes this city so attractive?
That's Madrid! A beautiful, lively city with lots of bars and restaurants. And it's the South of Europe. It's a very lively city, and that's of course linked to Spanish culture. You have to realise that Madrid is a small city - as is Barcelona - which has worked hard to make its public spaces attractive. And it works, because Spaniards love being outdoors.
**From an aesthetic point of view, how do they work with their heritage?
**The Spanish are very concerned about this aspect of their heritage, and apply fairly strict rules when it comes to restoring buildings. They work with materials such as brick, which is very consistent with their history and roots. But this is by no means a brake on innovation. Spanish architects are inventing a great deal around brick. But even in Spain, I see conflicts between supporters of conservation and supporters of revolution!
**You work on a global scale: how do you go about immersing yourself in the local culture upstream of a project?
**My theory is simple: when you're called in to build a building abroad, you're by nature incompetent. To build a project, you have to understand what's going on there, what's at stake. In short, you start from a very long way away. An architect who doesn't take the time to understand the human aspect, the uses, the local politics, the town planning, the strategy, is bound to make a mistake. So I ask my teams to spend half their time analysing and understanding the local environment. We need to understand what piece of the jigsaw is missing each time. In the existing environment, but also in nature, which is quite fragile.
