18 - Palais de Tokyo

18 - Palais de Tokyo - Lacaton & Vassal - 2014

13 Av. du Président Wilson, Paris

The office was created by Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal in 1987, and have since showed boldness through their design of new and transformative projects. The duo’s architecture reflects their advocacy of social justice and sustainability. They reinvigorated the Palais in 2002, and then built a new expansion in 2014.

The gallery has grown from 7000 to 22,000 square meters. Lacaton & Vassal chose to keep everything raw – honesty of materiality. Thus, when they broke through into an unused basement, the remnants of the process involved with breaking through have been left exposed, rather than plastered over. Free from the typical clean-room atmospheres, the building elements are allowed to age which adds to the patina of a structure that has stood for a century. The bottom basement layers exert an almost tomb-like aura, but the upper levels bask in the sunlight through glass roofs. Another interesting aspect of the museum is its lack of dictated routes. The visitor is free to roam and explore uninhibited. The technical requirements, the safety regulations, the accessibility and fittingout of the installations have determined the proposal’s design. Some rooms are even left so untouched they are unusable due to safety and fire regulations. The purpose of this is to encourage a flexible relationship with the natural environment and the urban one, preserving the openness made evident by the demolition and revealing the internal logic of a building.

Two of the premises reflected in the bases – a reduced budget and the explicit reference to the term “installation” – served as guidelines for the design of the project. The Palais de Tokyo then becomes a unique place, open from noon to midnight to every day. It becomes a place of cultural activity, for visitors and a place to stay for artists, where both participate in an open debate. The project starts from the perception of space as a context that the users constantly reshape; a place for meeting, without obstacles, with freedom of use, a space that changes depending on the activity of its participants. 100