The Last Monument of Paris

La Défense, paris

FRANCE

2014

The Proposal seeks to create a contemporary version of monument that stands as a collective architecture. Interested in what the limits of monumentality can do, La Défense is the location where monumentaility would challenge the vision. By tying together distinct private skyscrapers in the city, the project creates a super-monument that transforms the city.

The Last Monument relies on the infrastructure at La Défense. Power, structure, and sewerage are taken from the existing towers. In exchange we offer back a generous additional square footage to the existing towers to expand into. Programmatic exchange is celebrated at the intersection between the monument and existing towers, offering transitional programs from the private offices to the more public collective activities. The legs are flexible and able to deform to the existing fabric of the city, filling up the programmatic needs of La Défense, allowing residential development to occur in this new metropolitan city of Paris.

Architecture that acts as a monument as opposed to an architectural monument.

“Where there is nothing, everything is possible. Where there is architecture, nothing (else) is possible.”

– Rem Koolhaas

haussman's monumentality

Paris is a city of monuments. A city that in between 1853 and 1870 with Haussman's plan changed radically. The widening of streets and the building height limit set by Haussmann gave the city it's new identity. It's urban continuity.

Architecture as a monument

We seek to create a monument that creates a collective architecture, one the sums all of its parts to create a whole. Architecture as a monument vs. an architectural monument.