On June 12, 2014, the jury composed of representatives of the Ministry of Culture and Communication, of local authorities: City of Arles, Regional Council Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur and Communauté d'agglomération Arles Crau Camargue Montagnette, Heritage and Cultural Real Estate Project Operator (OPPIC), of the National School of Photography and qualified personalities, analyzed the projects of the five architectural teams that had been pre-selected to ensure project management of the relocation project of the École nationale supérieure de la photographie d'Arles.
The project presented by Marc Barani, Équerre d'argent 2008, Grand Prix national de l'architecture 2013, was selected for its qualities able to best meet the technical, educational and monstration needs of the School, while ensuring its perfect insertion into the urban fabric.
The selected team will build the new 4,000m² building of the École nationale supérieure de la photographie, located on the ZAC des Ateliers, in the immediate vicinity of the future Frank O. Gehry tower that will house the Luma Foundation. The School is scheduled to open in September 2017. The amount of work is estimated at €11 million before tax co-financed by the State and local authorities.
The future building will offer teaching and professional training spaces, laboratories dedicated to silver and digital techniques, an exhibition space and a conference space. Emblematic of the place that image and visual creation occupy in the context of the digital revolution, the new building will strengthen the school’s capacity to meet the renewed needs of training, research and image education. It will also help to confirm the identity and international influence of Arles as a territory of photography and contemporary artistic creation.
The teams of architects not selected at the end of this competition on sketch proposed each of the projects of high quality, based both on the urban context and on the major stakes of the School. These are, in the order of the ranking of the projects: Rudy Ricciotti (2nd); Francis Soler (3rd); Corinne Vezzoni et associés (4th); Eduardo Souto de Moura (5th).