LAN: Grand-Palais

LAN restoration and restructuring’s project of the Grand Palais intends to reinforce its identity as symbol of modernity.

The coming restructuring foresees the implementation of a new circulation mechanism centered around the middle building, the restoration of the galleries surrounding the Grand Nave, the installation of a climate control system, the creation of a logistics center, bringing the entire building up to code, and opening the large bay windows and passageways in order to restore the building’s original coherence and sense of transparency.

The intervention represent an opportunity to re-discover the traces and ways in which the Grand Palais has withstood the test of time, survived changes in its function, to assert architecture as a point of departure, and the space as nurturing life and society.

Even though the initial reason for building the Grand Palais was to provide a site for presenting and promoting French artistic culture during the World’s Fair of 1900, the plan nevertheless envisioned durability and flexibility from the outset. Even though these many adaptations progressively complicated and depreciated certain parts of the Grand Palais, the intelligence of its general form and its original spatial intent helped it survive these episodes and change with the times.

The aim for the New Grand Palais is to complete and strengthen its formal logic through interventions that return a sense of modernity to its whole, all the while respecting its traditional identity.

Restoration and redesign of the Grand-Palais des Champs-Élysées
Architects: LAN
Team: Franck Boutté Consultants (Sustainable design), Terrell (Structure, façades, fluids), Michel Forgue (Quantity surveyor), Systematica (Flux), Lamoureux (Acoustic), Casso (Fire protection and accessibility engineers), CICAD (SCMC), BASE (Landscaper), Mathieu Lehanneur (Design)
Client: Réunion des Monuments Nationaux – Grand-Palais
Area: 70 623 sqm