Carré d'Art (or Centre for Contemporary Art)

Sir Norman Foster
1993





Glass and steel temple of culture housing an art museum, library, auditorium, and offices

This cultural arts center by Pritzker-prize-winning architect Sir Norman Foster is located across the street from the famous first century BCE Roman temple, the Maison Carrée. The simple geometric shape and the colonnade of slender columns across the front of his building are reminders of that ancient temple.
 
This airy-seeming building of nine floors is in fact about half underground in order to respect the heights of buildings in the neighborhood. Light streams in the building through a glass roof over a centrally-located courtyard and into the stairwells, which even have heavy glass steps.
 

The entrance

 

The transparent portico



See this index for other works by Foster on this site.



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© 2007 Mary Ann Sullivan. I have photographed (on site), scanned, and manipulated all the images on these pages. Please feel free to use them for personal or educational purposes. They are not available for commercial purposes.