Courbevoie, France
1994
Leonardo Da Vinci
University Centre
Seen in the setting of La Défense, the Leonardo da Vinci University Centre is clearly consistent with this high-quality built environment, while at the same time proudly displaying its originality, a quality intrinsic to the building’s intellectual and cultural aspects. This architectural originality is both functional and formal: installed in front of a long grey rectilinear building are three elegant freestanding edifices, with, in front of their cornice, sculptures of archetypal forms interplaying with the background.
Client
Program
Area
Planning
Client
Conseil général des Hauts-de-Seine
SEM 92
Program
Classrooms, restaurants, sports facilities, amphitheratres, library
Area
55 000 m²
Planning
Delivery
1994
The interplays of colours and materials accentuate the sculptural effect: the two prisms, embedded one inside the other, are made of brown granite; the hollowed-out cube is covered in marbled granite; and the prow, a reversed cone, is in white marble. The interplay of forms is matched by a clear functional organisation: in the cornice-building are the flexible, scalable teaching floors, and in the three edifices are the communal facilities shared by the various institutions housed in the Centre (laboratories, administration facilities and library). Between the two, and undetectable at first sight, lies a thronged, bustling, brightly-lit interior street. Edged by shared leisure facilities (restaurant, cafeteria, exercise rooms), it offers a host of opportunities for meetups.
Three artists of the New Figuration movement (Jean-Charles Blais, Aki Kuroda and Bernard Quesniaux) were asked to create installations on a precise theme: “the new human being at the turn of the century”. Their installations, major works of art in both scale and significance, are part of a reciprocal qualifying relationship between edifice and work of art.
The interior street, a free space of precise proportions, creates a tension between cornice and sculptures in an allusion that derives more from New York than from Paris. Easy to navigate thanks to the interplay of forms and materials, generously lit via the glass roof and swarming with students and teaching staff, it is what gives the Leonardo da Vinci University Centre its urban dimension.
Three artists of the New Figuration movement (Jean-Charles Blais, Aki Kuroda and Bernard Quesniaux) were asked to create installations on a precise theme: “the new human being at the turn of the century”. Their installations, major works of art in both scale and significance, are part of a reciprocal qualifying relationship between edifice and work of art.
The interior street, a free space of precise proportions, creates a tension between cornice and sculptures in an allusion that derives more from New York than from Paris. Easy to navigate thanks to the interplay of forms and materials, generously lit via the glass roof and swarming with students and teaching staff, it is what gives the Leonardo da Vinci University Centre its urban dimension.
L’Oréal Factory