| Frédéric Borel, Paris (France) |
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This former student of Christian de Portzamparc reveals a strong personality in his architectural writing. He loves the city for its "tremendous power of attraction", and imagines buildings for it that are elegant, sophisticated, fragmented and linked together. Or he creates a surprise with geometric shapes and vivid colours. Reading the recent news about his projects is significant. A strong signal, capable of redefining the image of the fire service
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in the city, the fire station in Nogent-sur-Marne is a compact building, with the emphasis on means of communication, highlighting the work and the constant mobility of this type of service.
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In a more direct, more conceptual formal register, the Crèche des Récollets (Paris) is a bold accumulation of pure shapes. The project for the Law Courts building in Narbonne seeks to fit in with the site and stand as a noble, soothing object, stable and open, with a kind of halo, while remaining familiar. The project is like a marked path, a natural transition leading from the world of everyday life, to the surroundings of the judicial system.
For a residential building in the 16 th arrondissement in Paris, Frédéric Borel answered two questions: how to integrate the building into an enclosed islet, while opening up the calm and voluptuous atmosphere of the sheltered garden of a former convent to the eyes of passers-by? How to design a prestige building with generous architecture, capable of taking the place of present-day minimalism?
As to the project for the Paris Val de Seine Architecture College, it is defined as a conciliatory environment in osmosis with the various urban scales which overlap on the site. This multi-purpose building contributes to the organisation of the Masséna district (13 th Arrondissement of Paris) and sets the University of Jussieu within the city, while dialoguing without inhibitions with the legacy of the industrial past.
Always wanting to "listen to society and anticipate and create a life scenario for someone that he does not know, and for generations to come", Frédéric Borel wants to give back to every city the richness of mixtures. |
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Legends of the pictures
1. Frédéric Borel
2. & 3. Crèche des Récollets - Paris
Set of opaque blocks pressing against each other, as if levitatig on glass crystal, with limited resources, the building tackles the expression of two pairs of contradictory concepts, attraction and expansion, heaviness and weightlessness.
4. & 5. Palais de Justice de Narbonne
The building is organised around a "transparent axis", which fits in perfectly with the morphology of the site. "We wanted to convey the importance of the building to the city in a different way than just by its size. While remaining absolutely coherent and homogeneous, it is a building which presents different facets in response to the specific nature of the context."
6. Residential building, avenue Poincaré - Paris 16e
The project consists of concealing the mass of the building by giving it a depth, and finding the traditional tripartition, as well as the rhythm of the bow windows, but broken by a sculptural void, allowing a relationship between the barren atmosphere of the avenue, and the luxuriant atmosphere of the garden.
7. & 8. Architecture College of Paris Val de Seine - Paris 13e
A formal, clearly identifiable composition in the monumental façade stands alongside the Seine, and functions beyond the ring road, as a condenser of activities allowing the integration of the inner suburbs.
9. Nogent-sur-Marne fire station
The two residential buildings required by the commission are linked by walkways and girders, so as to form a parallelepiped raised from the ground. A large diagonal links the two rectangles, north-east and south-west, which make up this irregular site. | |
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