I. M. Pei - Grand LOUVRE

I. M. Pei - (1989) - Grand LOUVRE - Paris, France 

Phase 1 - completed 1989 
For eight centuries the Louvre has stood as a unique national monument, central to the people and spirit of France. In 1983, President François Mitterrand requested that it be modernized, expanded and better integrated with the city — all without compromising the integrity of the historic building. The challenge was magnified by the fact that the Louvre was originally constructed, and used for most of its life, as a royal palace; it was fundamentally ill-suited to serve as a museum. The two-phase solution involved the reorganization of the long linear building into a compact U-shaped museum around a focal courtyard. A centrally located glass pyramid forms the new main entrance and provides direct access to galleries in each of the museum's three wings. Critically, the pyramid also serves as a skylight for a very large expansion building constructed under the courtyard to provide all the public amenities and technical support required in a modern museum. Corollary objectives for improved urban integration led to the transformation of surface parking into a three-hectare fountain plaza. Closed passages through the building were opened as public rights of way, underground services and parking relieved congestion, and a 55,000m2 mixed-use complex, supplementary but independent of the museum, was designed to help finance the project and reinvigorate the heart of Paris. The half-mile-long Louvre, previously an obstacle to circulation, thus became a vital gathering place and bridge to the surrounding city.

Phase 2 - Completed 1993 
Conversion of the Richelieu Wing from offices of the Ministry of Finance into exhibition space constitutes the critical second stage of the Grand Louvre. Only by incorporating this nineteenth-century wing could the project goals be fully realized. Unlike Phase I, which involved the construction of a new underground building, Phase II required the creation of new space within an historic shell. Work included the cleaning and restoration of façades and exterior sculpture, conversion of three interior courtyards (previously staff parking lots) into skylit sculpture courts, and demolition of 12 acres of dingy government offices compressed into 6+ floors. With the exception of several historic rooms, the interior was totally rebuilt to accord with the three-level palace exterior. Sculpture was installed on the bottom level for maximum support, Decorative Arts in the middle, and at the top, painting galleries with innovative skylights designed for optimal viewing of the collection. A grand escalator court facilitates access to all levels, merging old and new and better equipping the Louvre for its preeminent role as a modern museum. Beyond conversion of the Richelieu Wing, Phase II included the underground mixed-use complex known as the Carrousel du Louvre, the Pyramide Inversée that brings light into its center, the connected underground parking garage, and a series of related surface projects designed to actively reclaim the Louvre as a vital pedestrian precinct in the heart of Paris.

Le CORBUSIER - SWISS Pavilion

Le CORBUSIER - (1933) - SWISS Pavilion (Paris, France) In 1924, Switzerland decided to built its student housing on the University Campus of Paris (Cité Universitaire http://www.ciup.fr/)[48°49'4.82"N - 2°20'31.59"E]. The inauguration took place in July 1933. Considered to be one of "the most free and imaginative structures" of Le Corbusier [http://www.fondationlecorbusier.fr/], the building represents a synthesis of three approaches. The first one advocates the autonomous slab free from any reference to the form of the land site. The second advocates an articulation of the slab by the means of specific functional elements, or a dialogue between industrial and "natural" materials. The third approach applies two of the five points of modern architecture: pilotis in exposed concrete and a roof terrace combining privacy and openness to the sky and sun. In many respects this buildings is a landmark, not only in the terms of Le Corbusier's own future development, but also for other architects who during the second half of the twentieth century developed their approach to architecture based to a considerable extent on Le Corbusier's pioneering experiments. Since 1945, the building has undergone several additional changes by Le Corbusier. In 1948, a wall painting was commissioned to replace the previous photo mural of 1933. In 1953, Le Corbusier transformed the southern curtain-wall in order to reduce the excessive solar impact and in 1957 he added a series of enamelled benches and a new polychromy to the rooms. On September 8th, 1965 the Swiss Pavillion was included in the register, and in 1986 confirmed and classified as a historical monument.

Sketch Architect's Forest Retreat

Architectural freehand sketch of design concept for a forest hideaway retreat. (Actual Drawing Time: 27min)

Gremio Filme Construtivo HD.mp4

Renzo PIANO - Rue de Meaux HOUSING

Renzo PIANO - (1991) - Rue de Meaux HOUSING (Paris, France) This residential complex in the 19th district of Paris is Composed of 220 low cost apartaments. The homes all face a central internal garden planted with birch trees. Research into the grani and color of materials led to the creation of a "double-skinned" facade system and the use of terracotta. Applying GRC technology, Renzo Piano [http://www.rpbw.com/] has taken the prefabricated panel to a new level of architectonic sophistication and excellence. "The Rue de Meaux Housing (1991) in Paris exemplifies Piano's ability to bring together innovation and exacting craftsmanship with knowledge of the technical aspects of the production of buildings to achieve new and successful results. The appeal of the building's terra cotta cladding brought a durable surface material back into popularity, while revealing its potential for frank elegance, in contrast to neoclassical applications that often disguised the material." Renzo Piano

Le CORBUSIER - Maison du Brésil

Le CORBUSIER - (1959) - Maison du Brésil (Paris, France) This housing block at the Cité Universitaire complex in Paris (coordinates 48°49'04 N - 02°20'37 E) was designed by Le Corbusier for Brazilian students and researchers, was opened June 24, 1959. Initially, the design had been assigned to the great Brazilian architect Lucio Costa. The latter appealed to his friend Le Corbusier, already author of the Swiss Foundation, to help develop the project. But the project was so profoundly changed from the initial sketch that Lucio Costa abandoned his paternity of the house!

The Stone Towers by Zaha Hadid Architects

Opus Office Tower © Zaha Hadid Architects

Le CORBUSIER - Villa SAVOYE

Le CORBUSIER - (1931) - Villa SAVOYE (Poissy, France) Suspended on top of a hill and surrounded by tall trees, Villa Savoye by Le Corbusier [http://www.fondationlecorbusier.fr/] is realized between 1928 and 1931 as a summer residence for Savoye Family. Although this is a suburban patrician villa here the architect tackles the issue, developed in previous projects of low-cost housing, housing as a "machine à habiter" , perfect working order. The Villa looks like a huge white box supported by slender concrete stilts that allow you to have the ground floor occupied by the volume of service and partly open to car traffic, while the two upper levels are broken down according to internal movement people. The result is an architectural promenade through simple and austere forms, in line with the principles of Purism, that Le Corbusier had deepened over the last ten years. Centrally located within the building has a ramp that leads from the entrance vestibule on the first floor, where you can go into different rooms, all defined by primary volumes, and finally leads to the upper terrace, where some elements are present as free space forms, placing them among the factors of Cartesian meditation order of the building and the natural order of the context. Le Corbusier, always ready to reconcile opposites, establishing a close dialogue between these two entities through the opening of large windows that frame the surrounding landscape as well, allowing the light, abundant in this glade, to break inside the home in an almost violent, to reaffirm and enhance the pure white of all surfaces. The villa, which has many similarities with Villa Stein in Garches realized a few years earlier, is taken as an example demonstration of the "5 points de l'architecture nouvelle": the stilts, the roof-garden, the plant and the free facade, the window tape, or the five terms at the base of contemporary architectural language. The building recently underwent renovations, was declared by the French national interest.

Le CORBUSIER - Villa La ROCHE

Le CORBUSIER - (1923) - Villa La ROCHE (Paris, France) La Maison La Roche-Jeanneret is a double house built by Le Corbusier in 1924. They are in the Rue Doctor Blanche to the numbers 8-10. They are the seat of the Le Corbusier Foundation http://www.fondationlecorbusier.fr/. The project dates back to 1923, when Raoul La Roche commissioned to the Helvetic architect a house where he could also be exposed his art gallery. Was used the new technique of reinforced concrete and, in line with the experiences of the modern movement, ran out all the decorations in favor of an absolute set of volumes of pure geometrical features. Villa Jeanneret was instead built in collaboration with the architect Pierre Jeanneret in 1925. The two buildings are joined in today. [...] Open the door, go under a bridge, and the tight space explodes upwards and through punched-out voids that are mysteriously backlit. Go across the triple-height space, look at the Purist paintings, one of which you now seem to be moving through, turn left up a stair, and survey the pure prisms from a balcony....Catch your breath, turn around, and proceed to the culmination, La Roche's curved gallery... [M]ount the brown ramp to the left, to Le Roche's aerie, his top-lit library. The spatial sequence is remarkable and remained a constant preoccupation of Le Corbusier. It also became the stock in trade of subsequent Modern architects.[...] (Charles Jencks)

Zaha HADID - Exhibition Pavillion

Zaha HADID - (2007) - Exhibition Pavillion (Paris, France) This Exhibition Pavillion was born to Traveling, his nature is to be disassembled and reassembled in different places. After travelling in Hong Kong, Tokyo and New York since 2007, this great "white shell" in reflective material, donated by Chanel [http://www.chanel-mobileart.com] at the Institut du Monde Arabe [http://www.imarabe.org/] in the April 28 2011, in his permanent home will be used like a Design Museum to further develop cultural programs of the Centre, through exhibitions and events featuring the work of new contemporary artists from the Arab countries. Until the end of autumn 2011 is hosting an exhibition dedicated to the projects of Zaha Hadid [http://www.zaha-hadid.com/], the first woman architect to win the Pritzker Prize in the 2004. The Mobile Art Pavilion symbolizes a new conception of building. [...] It is an architectural language of fluidity and nature - Zaha Hadid explains - got done with digital tools that have allowed us to build a pavilion with organic forms, instead of merely repeating order that characterizes the industrial architecture of the twentieth century [...].The fluidity of the Mobile Art Pavilion extends from the outer shell to inside detail, where a subdivision creates a spiral that in architecture is called " Torus

Part 3. Architectural Model Making: Gluing and Connecting

Part 2. Architectural Model Making: Scaling & Cutting

Part 1. Architectural Model Making: Tools & Materials

Part 3. Architectural Model Making: Gluing and Connecting

Part 2. Architectural Model Making: Scaling & Cutting

Part 1. Architectural Model Making: Tools & Materials

Zaha HADID - Exhibition Pavillion

Le CORBUSIER - The Chapel Notre-Dame du Haut

Le CORBUSIER - Villa La ROCHE