[Untitled]

Vormus, Sammy

Talbot, Clement

Paris, France

2014

005-LF-P012

Talbot + Vormus

Professional

To meet the future needs of the institution, the project implements a strategy of multivalent spaces capable of accommodating known usages of today, but also those that will be invented tomorrow. The trend towards digitization of data and technological nomadism result here in the design of continuous and open spaces. But to prepare for the future is also to secure the past, creating two levels of archives that can accommodate nearly 10km of shelving. And the Athenaeum of 2050 will be a place of exchange, multimedia experience and memory.

The disappearance of the Athenaeum’s historical building will leave an imprint that draws the foundations of this proposal. The project context is the history of the place, a history around which the building stands. The opaque base, contemporary abstraction of the old building, crystallizes the legacy of the institution and protrudes into an extension structured around a broad patio. The body and the crowning result from the base as much as they define it. The interdependence of the composition illustrates the continuity that will guide the development of the Athenaeum by 2050.

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