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Europe 40 Under 40 Awards ARCHIVE 2019
Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation - Simon Barthelemy
  • Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation - Simon Barthelemy
  • Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation - Simon Barthelemy
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Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation - Simon Barthelemy

The new Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation is located in the Rue des Archives in the Marais district in Paris, among a group of eighteenth-century buildings. 

The ground floor program is composed of flexible exhibition spaces, a bookshop, and educational rooms and is organized along a longitudinal parcel highly accessible from the street level, around two granite paved courtyards. The whole project has been designed in a fluidity and transparency spirit - the Foundation is fully visible from the street. Some wide full-length glass galleries for temporary events, one courtyard freely accessible during the foundation opening hours, create a strong interaction between the visitors of the Foundation, the inquiring walkers visiting the neighborhood, and the inhabitants from the upper floors housings. A more private first floor is composed of photographic archives, a library for researchers, and a group of offices.

Anthracite polished concrete floors, white lacquered metal, satin-natural aluminum and bleached ash for walls and pieces of furniture, a luminous wall: the set of materials used for the project, discreet, is declined in wide surfaces and induces, from its range, a feeling of unexpected along the path of the visitors.

The Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation project is important for us because, besides being located in an art district of Paris, it has been the first competition we won when we just created NOVO. We developed a strong relationship with the team of the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation, and we are now working on the project for an extension of the Foundation, which is planned to open in 2021.

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