Christian de Portzamparc
Christian de Portzamparc (Casablanca, Morocco, May 9, 1944) is a French architect. In 1994 he was honored with the Pritzker Prize, the most prestigious international architecture award.
Biography
Born in Casablanca, in the French protectorate of Morocco, where his father was an army officer. A few months after he was born, his family returned to France and settled in Marseille. As a child Portzamparc was already interested in art. When he once saw some drawings by Le Corbusier, his interest in architecture was also aroused, although he continued to devote himself for some time primarily to painting and design. He began studying architecture in 1962, at the National School of Fine Arts in Paris. During his university career, in 1966, doubts arose within him regarding architecture. It seemed to him a very rigid and routine discipline, different from what he longed for, and also different from pictorial and sculptural art, which he considered free. He thought that the modernist ideas promoted by Le Corbusier had ceased to be valid for him, since he did not see himself capable of carrying out projects of this style in a much broader and more diverse world. He went to New York, where he lived for nine months in Greenwich Village, meeting writers, poets, and other artists.
Trajectory
In 1969 Portzamparc obtained his degree, but he had not yet started working as an architect. He dedicated himself to collaborating with a group of sociologists who analyzed the characteristics of residential buildings, the reasons why their tenants chose them to live in, the relationships between them and their neighbors, and other similar aspects. The main conclusion that he drew from this work was that architecture should assume a social responsibility.
Finally, Portzamparc opened his office in 1970 and received his first commission the following year, a tower for the water supply in Marne-laVellée. The tower is inspired by the Tower of Babel and is a monumental construction at a crossroads where it functions as a visual center in all directions.
He then designed an apartment complex in Paris. From there his work grew in intensity and breadth. After becoming a finalist in two major projects in the United States, the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art and the Omaha Museum of Art, he was commissioned to design the LMVH (Louis Vuitton Möet Chandon) tower in New York. He has also gained a reputation in Japan from the apartment buildings he has completed in Fukuoka and the Bandai Tower in Tokyo.
Portzamparc was distinguished in 1994 with the Pritzker Prize, the most prestigious international architecture award, comparable to the Nobel Prize. His wife is Brazilian and a well-known furniture designer.
Representative works
- Philharmonic Theatre (Luxembourg)
- French Embassy (Berlin)
- Building of Television Studies in Boulogne (Paris)
- Housing (Fukuoka, Japan)
- Bandai Tower (Tokyo)
- Crédit Lyonnais Bank Building (Lille, France)
- Extension of the Congress Palace (Paris)
- Ungaro stores (Paris)
- House of Paul Riquet (Nanterre, France)
- Municipal Building in Rue Petition (Paris)
- National Conservatory of Music and Dance (La Villette, Paris)
- Antoine Bourdelle Museum (Paris)
- Paris Opera Dance School (Nanterre, France)
- City of Music / Cité de la musique (Paris)
- Apartments Hautes Formes (Paris)
- Tower of Condominiums One 57 New York
- Museum-Herge (Tintin)Belgium
- U-Arena (Nanterre)
- City of Arts (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
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