A project by Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Shigeru Ban and France’s Jean de Gastines has been completed on Seguin Island in the western Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt.
The Cité Musicale complex includes a multipurpose hall, a 1,150-seat classical music auditorium, a school of music and a park.
The hall can hold 4,000 people if all are seated, or 6,000 if some stand.
The venue is designed in what is called a "vineyard style", in which the audience surrounds the stage.
Jean de Gastines said: "The audience is spread across multiple terraces all around the stage, creating a large geographic and sensory proximity between the musicians and the audience.
"Acoustically, the surfaces that compose the different terraces allow for early reflections of the orchestra, intensifying the feeling of intimacy with the musicians."
Situated in Jean Nouvel’s masterplan for Seguin Island, the project contains a triangular solar sail that follows the path of the sun, increasing the efficiency of its PV panels and providing a solar shield for the lobby behind.
The development contains a glass "globe" situated inside a timber shell behind the moving sail.
Shigeru Ban has designed what will be the world’s tallest hybrid timber structure in Vancouver, Canada.
Images courtesy of Shigeru Ban Architects
