Ladies and gentlemen,
Dear candidates for the National Grand Prix of Architecture,
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,
Dear friends,
I am very pleased to meet you at the Ministry of Culture tonight to present the 2016 National Grand Prix of Architecture. Many previous winners are present tonight. The 2016 laureate will come to you to add his work – already realized but also coming, and this is also the meaning of this award. It will add its name to some thirty great names that mark the architecture of their time. Two of them are on the jury, dear Dominique Perrault and dear Francis Soler.
Before getting to the heart of the matter and unveiling to you the fruits of the jury’s work, I would like to rejoice with you that this Grand Prix award is part of a special year for architecture, a particularly rich year, the year of architecture, First, thanks to the law on creative freedom, architecture and heritage passed this summer, dear Patrick Bloche. His architectural ambition is very high, as you know. It comes after a lot of parliamentary work and was the result of a constant commitment by some parliamentarians here present, whom I salute, as well as by the government. I would like to salute my predecessor, Fleur Pellerin, who was very committed to this.
I would like to welcome some very important advances in this law, the first major law on architecture since 1977: first, measures that restore its rightful place to architecture in the City, with the affixing of the name of the architect on its achievements, which is very important; secondly - and I know that many of you are very attached to this -, the permit to make, on which we have had to fight, that is to say, the principle of an experiment which, in order to achieve certain objectives, to depart from the most precise norms and thus to explore new architectural paths; also, the more systematic recourse to the architect, with the lowering of the threshold from which this recourse is obligatory; and also its involvement in development permits.
These provisions are important for architects, but they are especially important for the French and their daily lives. I would like to echo the words of the National Council of the Order of Architects, which I commend, "This Act responds well to the need for architectural, landscape and environmental quality in everyday construction and in rural and urban areas."
This renewed vision of everyday architecture was already at work at the Venice Architecture Biennale, which I had the pleasure of visiting with some of its curators, and with a beautiful manifesto signed by Obras and the collective AJAP 2014 to rethink this architecture of everyday life. This manifesto ends with the words “change the look, act, accompany” and is also a front, to echo the theme of the Biennale. This only strengthened our determination to act on the training of the architects of tomorrow and their beginnings in the career, with the reform of the status and governance of the schools of architecture, which had not evolved since 1978; with also the creation of a unique status of teacher-researcher, to anchor the schools and the teaching of architecture in the higher education certainly, but above all to keep the specificities, which make that the speakers in these schools are practitioners. This specificity, which is dear to the art schools of the Ministry, we must cherish, preserve and protect it.
We have also worked for the harmonization of admission requirements in national architecture colleges, with simplified and more visible admission criteria for bachelors. But we must continue to work, I believe, to better open our schools to social diversity – which is already much done – and to diversity in general. As in all our schools, this is a challenge. The Schools of Higher Education of Culture are perfectly able to answer it. In doing so, they will drag society along.
Finally, 2016 will be the first year of National Architecture Days, developed and designed as part of the National Architecture Strategy, with over 300 events. Here at the Palais-Royal, in the gardens, the Afex will show the works of French architects abroad, of which we must be very proud. We will also address, within the framework of these Days, the youngest, and even the very young, since it is planned a program and educational tools in the direction of kindergartens. I had the opportunity for elementary school to see how sensitive the children were to it and how interested they were in the work of the architect, whom they see and who is just waiting to be revealed. They have a very strong appetite and demand for it.
Revealing to all the contribution of architecture also means strengthening the Heritage under 100 years label, which is provided for in the law to recognize and preserve this contemporary heritage that is very precious to us. I am thinking in particular of the Grande Arche de la Défense, with the possibility, in my opinion, of first labelling this edifice so eloquent, witness to an era, witness to a strong will. I want to salute Paul Andreu, who I think I saw, and who is a Grand Prix winner. Recognition will be allowed by the strengthening of this label for the Grande Arche de la Défense - which is also now a character of novel thanks to Laurence Cossé.
I want to quote Dominique Perrault on 20th century architecture and heritage, “Nothing is finished but everything is there, in the state of the moment, marking the trail of the work in progress.”
Dear Dominique Perrault, you are therefore part of this jury, which had the delicate task of awarding the Grand Prix national d'architecture, which is both a very strong professional recognition and a symbolic recognition, also financially endowed. For the first time this year, the prize will be awarded in recognition of the laureate’s work through an exhibition at the Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine, and also through master classes in schools.
I would like to thank the voters, who freely proposed dozens of names. I would like to thank each member of the jury very warmly. You had to decide between five finalists who presented their project: Patrick Bouchain, Anne Démians, Renée Gailhoustet, Jean-Marc Ibos and Myrto Vitart, and finally Marc Mimram. I know it was very difficult to separate them. I know that being a finalist is already a huge recognition – some of them have already experienced it. I would first like to congratulate them all. I also know that the jury vote was extremely close. I think that makes the case for this award to be held more regularly.
I would now like to proclaim the winner of the 2016 National Grand Prix of Architecture, or rather the winners, Jean-Marc Ibos and Myrto Vitart.
I will remind you of the reasons that led the jury to make this choice – but given the ovation you just gave them, I think you already know them.
These two architects realized the exceptional extension of the Museum of Fine Arts of Lille in 1997, which will earn them national and international recognition. They have signed an emblematic work of a fluid relationship between heritage and contemporary architecture. This work continues in Strasbourg with the André Malraux Media Library installed on the river port, which transforms the old silos and also transforms the urban relationship to the landscape. In 2004, it is with the Maison des adolescents – Maison de Solenn in the grounds of the Cochin Hospital in Paris that their research continues on an urban scale, by creating on the boulevard and facing the Val-de-Grâce a glazed and open building, which fits perfectly into Professor Rufo’s medical project for anorexic children and adolescents.
Their material of choice is glass, a material that requires precision and that allows them to create a geometric and rational art that characterizes the inscription of their work in a history of French architecture, which is marked by their achievements.
I also applaud their commitment and their ability to push regulations to the limit, which will be particularly useful to us in the context of licensing.
Dear Jean-Marc Ibos and Myrto Vitart, I have the honour and great pleasure of presenting you with this magnificent diploma, created by Daniel Buren, of the National Grand Prix of Architecture.