Born in Fumel France in 1945, Jean Nouvel is one of those rare architects whose work straddles an entire industry. From a simple desk or lamp to entire buildings, Jean Nouvel has won many awards. Nouvel was awarded the Pritzker Prize, architecture’s highest honour, in 2008, for his work on more than 200 projects, among them, in the words of The New York Times, the “exotically louvered” Arab World Institute, the bullet-shaped and “candy-colored” Torre Agrbar in Barcelona, the “muscular” Guthrie Theatre with its cantilevered bridge in Minneapolis, and in Paris, the “defiant, mysterious and wildly eccentric” Musee du quai Branly (2006) and the Philharmonie de Paris (a “trip into the unknown”) in 2012.
In 2013 he was invited by Cosmit (the official organisers of I Salone including Eurocucina – which is only 54 days away by the way!) to explore his enjoyment of the office, a project intended to illustrate “the concept of taking pleasure in life, working is an integral part of living and we often spend more time in our offices than we do at home”, says Nouvel. With many of you now venturing into areas outside the kitchen and bathroom we thought this worth a look.
“Once we reject cloned and alienating spaces, it becomes clear that there are many possible solutions,” says Jean Nouvel. “We have to change our behaviours, plan and think of work with a different mindset, no matter where an office is situated, it has to have a space it can call its own, identifiable, alterable, on a human scale, with its own history and objects, an enjoyable environment, basically.”
This freak of industry, and I mean that in the best possible way, has vision that emphasize his courageous pursuit of new ideas and his challenge of accepted norms in order to stretch the boundaries of the field. His persistence, imagination, exuberance, and, above all, an insatiable urge for creative experimentation’ are qualities that are constantly seen in Nouvel’s work.
For more images visit www.jeannouvel.com
