Andrea Lauria
It is located on the banks of the Seine and its building is part of the Parisian design
Andrea Lauria
In the past months, I’ve talked a lot about the work of one of my favorite famous architects, the French designer Jean Nouvel. In the Gulf, Nouvel designed the Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum, which was established in 2017 and is located on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and the Qatar National Museum, which opened in 2019 and is located in Doha, Qatar. Both museums are not only among the most beautiful museums in the Gulf but also in the world, as they are two pieces of art.
Jean Nouvel is one of the world’s most celebrated contemporary architects and has received a number of prestigious honors over the course of his career, including the Wolf Prize in the Arts in 2005, the 2008 Pritzker Prize and the Aga Khan Award for Architecture for designing the IMA project.
Jean Nouvel has always had a special relationship with the Arab world, as I told you that the French architect has designed two exceptional museums in the Gulf, the Louvre Abu Dhabi and the Qatar National Museum. However, this special relationship with the Arab world began many years earlier, with the design project for the Beautiful Arab World Institute in Paris, for which Nouvel won the prestigious Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1989.
The Institute of the Arab World “IMA” is an organization created by France in Paris in 1980 with 18 Arab countries to research and disseminate information about the Arab world and its cultural and spiritual values. Founded as a result of the underrepresentation of the Arab world in France, the institute seeks to provide an urban site for the promotion of Arab civilization, art, knowledge and aesthetics. This project is the result of funding from both the League of Arab States and the French government, and the cost of the building is about 230 million euros.
The Institut du Monde Arabe has a really beautiful location in Paris, on the banks of the Seine. The Institute was designed and implemented by a team of architects including Jean Nouvel in collaboration with other designers Gilbert Lezines and Pierre Soria.
Designed by John Nouvel for the Arab World Institute (IMA), the building intended to be a modern architectural symbol of dialogue between Western culture and the Arab world, the Arab World Institute was publicly inaugurated in December 1987.
The institute is an integral part of Parisian urban design, as it mirrors the design of the buildings of the nearby University of Jussieu, while at the same time being clearly distinguished by its mashrabiya. The institute houses a museum, library, auditorium, restaurant, offices and meeting rooms.
Inside the museum there are pieces of art from the Arab world, dating back to pre-Islam until the twentieth century. One of the major initiatives within the museum is the inclusion of special exhibitions.
The architecture studio with John Nouvel won the design competition in 1981. The building was constructed between 1981 and 1987 and measures 181,850 square feet (16,894 square metres).
The building is located in the Parisian “V” arrondissement, in the avenue des Fossés-Saint-Bernard and acts as a shield between the Jussieu campus of Pierre and Marie Curie University, built in large urban blocks and the Seine River. The facade of the building facing the river follows the curve of the waterway, reducing the rigidity of the rectangular grille and providing an attractive view from the Sully Bridge. At the same time, the building appears to fold itself towards Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
The building is a combination of cutting edge design and highly advanced technology. In contrast to the curved surface on the river side, the southwest façade is a very light, rectangular glass curtain wall, facing a large square public space that opens towards the Île de la Cité and Notre Dame. Behind the glass wall is a metal screen showing animated geometric motifs. The trim is 240 light-sensitive, motor-controlled windows, or shutters, that act as sophisticated solar beams that open and close automatically to control the amount of light and heat entering the building from the sun. This mechanism creates interior spaces with filtered light – an effect often used in Islamic architecture with its climate-conscious strategies.
The design of the building is very sophisticated and refined which demonstrates once again how John Nouvel is not only a fine architect but also very intelligent. The innovative use of technology and the success of the building’s design brought Nouvel to fame and is one of the cultural reference points in Paris.
As usual, Nouvel projects are very sophisticated and symbolic at the same time, as the architect always tries to interpret the symbols of cultures and peoples through excavations in the past like an anthropologist. The interior design using white and gray colors and the smooth play with the transparency of the structure embodies the concept of the institute itself. Everything in the building revolves around symbolism and highlights the main purpose and goals of the institute. The book tower ascends to connect several floors to the library, while the spaces are wide and luminous around the courtyard, and a forest of columns spreads around the hypostyle hall. This is a reference to the Iraqi ziggurats, the minaret of the Samarra Mosque, the inside of Dar Aziza Palace, and the corridors of the Great Mosque of Cordoba.
For various reasons and not only thanks to the presence of photographic films, the building reveals a close and convincing relationship between architecture and cinema. He has so much energy that when you visit him, one gets the impression that he is stepping into a movie set. This aspect is also underlined by Nouvel’s words: “The sequence of passages between different sizes and levels of illumination, according to the different paths within them, can be thought of as a series of photographic angles and apertures.
The project is not just an institute of Arab culture: it is a place where Parisians meet, it is a museum and a library, it is an amazing viewpoint, but it is also a café where you can chat and relax, it is a place for study and discussion between the two cultures most represented in Paris: Western and Arab.
The project is amazing, John Nouvel shows in this project an amazing understanding of Arab architecture, culture and spirit. Indeed, it is possible to draw parallels between some elements of the institute and a number of traditional Arab buildings. For example, the Mozarabic square and polygonal decoration of the southern walls was inspired by designs for the Alhambra in Granada.
Despite these references to the Arab world, Nouvel knows that the building is located in the center of Paris in the center of Europe, and the institute wants to establish itself as a European building. The idea of a cultural center that includes spaces for exhibitions, events, performances, conferences and discussions, in addition to a library, cinema and documentation center is a typical French idea, and it is worth mentioning the famous Center Georges Pompidou. The Pompidou Center, the National Center of Arts and Culture Georges Pompidou, is a complex building in the Beaubourg district in the 4th arrondissement of Paris near the Marais. It was designed in the high-tech architecture style by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers and opened in 1977.
Opened in Paris in 1987, the Institut du Monde Arabe is certainly an institute that promotes Arab culture and arts, but thanks to a building designed by Jean Nouvel it does so in a very modern and captivating way.
Andrea Lauria
Professor Andrea Loria is an Italian archaeologist who graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. He also holds a degree in art history from Roma Tre University in Rome. He lectures to master’s students in museology at the Universities of Tor Vergata in Rome and the American Temple University “Rome Campus”.
In 2020, he became the published author of From the Renaissance to the Contemporary Museum, and is also preparing his lecture guide. Luria’s field of research is the super-museum phenomenon with a particular interest in the Arab countries as compared to the Western world.
Arabic translation: Egyptian architect Ilaria Abdel-Masih.
The International Arab Institute in Paris, decorations, transparency, luminaries, and continuous movement
