Originally published in AR June , this piece was republished online in February A stepped roof supported by a grid of concrete columns brought light into the classically deep industrial plan. White wall planes demarcate spaces on an east-west axis, while secondary timber clad walls complete volumes along the opposing north-south spine.
The white walls are made from honeycomb aluminium panels more usually employed in aeronautics selected for their lightness, flatness and large fabrication size. In places the walls do not meet the floor, but simply hang from the roof structure, like gigantic pieces of scenery, sculpting the internal landscape. Without the cars, you could almost be in an art museum. Arranged around the edge are a trio of auditoria, with capacities for , and people.
Seminar rooms and offices are located at first floor level, accessed by a walkway that winds around and overlooks the central exhibition hall. Punctuated by spaces for informal interaction and casual encounter, the walkway is like an internal street, contracting and expanding as it circulates around the glittering shrine to the automobile below. Anchored and focused by this big, fixed nucleus, the rest of the internal arrangement can be more flexible and fluid, capable of accommodating different sorts of events, from press launches to public promotions.
Hence the notion of the walls as fixed scenery, providing a neutral backdrop for changing choreographies of cars and people. To articulate and emphasise the relationship between old and new, the original finishes of the steel roof structure and ceilings were carefully restored. A glass roof links the hitherto separate building with the main volumes to form a luminous entrance galleria.
On the east side, a new steel and glass facade will connect with a proposed urban square, part of a wider ongoing redevelopment of the former industrial quarter by the Hauts-de-Seine regional authorities. Such recasting could be regarded as predictably emblematic of the triumph of the services sector over the messiness of making and manufacture. Since , The Architectural Review has scoured the globe for architecture that challenges and inspires.
