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A compromise was reached that he would study architecture because being an artist was too risky. Although he failed an entry exam for a school in Bordeaux, when he was twenty, he went to Paris and won first prize in a national competition to attend Beaux Arts there. To earn money while going to school, he took a job in the architecture practice of Claude Parent and Paul Virilio. After being with them for only a year, he was made project manager for an eighty unit apartment complex. By the time he was 25, he had finished school and had his own office in partnership with François Seigneur.

Nouvel credits Parent with guiding jobs to his fledgling office, and perhaps even more importantly, with recommending him for the job of director of the Paris Biennale, which allowed Nouvel to design exhibits for some fifteen years, and make many contacts in the art and theater worlds.

From 1972 to 1984, Nouvel was successively associated with Gilbert Lezenes, Jean-Francois Guyot and Pierre Soria. In 1985, he concurrently founded Jean Nouvel et Associés with three of his junior project architects: Emmanuel Blamont, Jean-Marc Ibos and Mirto Vitart. In 1988, he formed with Emmanuel Cattani, JNEC. Some six years later, in 1994, he created his current firm, Ateliers Jean Nouvel, with Michel Pélissié. His main office in Paris today consists of some 140 people, one of the largest architectural practices in France.

Jean Nouvel has two sons with Odile Fillion, who is editor of the architectural magazine, Architecture CREE. Bertrand, his first born in 1979, is currently doing his post doctorate work in computer science at the University of Chiba in Japan. Pierre, who was born in 1981, is a director, producer and theater designer at Factoid, his own company. Jean Nouvel also has a daughter, born in 1994 to his second wife, Catherine Richard. He currently lives with the Swedish architect Mia Hagg whose practice called Habiter Autrement (HA) is in Paris.

Words of his own

"Since the beginning of his architectural career in the 1970s, Frenchman Jean Nouvel has broken the aesthetic of modernism and postmodernism to create a stylistic language all his own. He places enormous importance on designing a building harmonious with its surroundings," said Bill Lacy in his book, "One Hundred Contemporary Architects". Lacy, who was executive director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize from 1988 until 2005 when he retired, continued, "In the end that building's design may borrow from traditional and nontraditional forms, but its presentation is entirely unique."

In some of Nouvel's early, more obviously postmodern-influenced projects, which are not well documented today, the deftness is less evident. Even in those years, Nouvel was developing his own vocabulary, and that continues constantly in new projects, so in this sense the work can arguably be seen as experimental. I prefer to see it as developmental, with an emerging vocabulary and meta-vocabulary that makes it clear at times that the architect is being artful — even wildly artful — yet not wantonly so. The art is always in the elements of the building, in architecture as space, architecture as structure, architecture as an art of cultural — even when extravagantly extended.

In his own words, Nouvel says, "Critics have defined me as a conceptual architect, that is, one who works more with words than with drawings. I mistrust drawings as fixing things too early in the creative process, while words liberate. I believe the architect is a man who says something."

Nouvel's work lies clearly in the modern tradition, by that tradition's most defining terms, the attitudes taken toward gravity, material, and space. With its great artistic richness, the label of "expressionist modern," while not completely satisfying, seems broadly appropriate. On Nouvel's case, the expression is often quietly reserved in some dimensions, while openly free in others. Always, it is deeply felt.

The Pritzker Architecture Prize was established by The Hyatt Foundation in 1979 to honor annually a living architect whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision, and commitment, which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture.

On June 2, 2008 in Washington, D.C., the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress will be the venue for the 30th anniversary ceremony awarding the Pritzker Architecture Prize to Jean Nouvel of France.

 

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SUBSCRIPTION SAMPLE Greenscape is a key element of Jean Nouvel's Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, at times becoming part of the building's exterior. Photo: Vincent Marqueton Extra Large Image Vivid colors dominate the Musée du Quai Branly, inside and out. Photo: Roland Halbe Extra Large Image SUBSCRIPTION SAMPLE Musée du Quai Branly floor plan drawing. Image: Courtesy Ateliers Jean Nouvel Extra Large Image Musée du Quai Branly elevation drawing. Image: Courtesy Ateliers Jean Nouvel Extra Large Image Brightly colored boxes mark one side wall of the Musée du Quai Branly. The boxes vary in size and the distance they cantilever. Photo: Roland Halbe Extra Large Image A large, sloping cantilevered roof is a prominent part of Jean Nouvel's 2005 addition to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, in Madrid, Spain. Photo: Philippe Ruault Extra Large Image The preserved facade of the original Reina Sofía Museum building is illuminated by skylights in Jean Nouvel's addition. Photo: Philippe Ruault Extra Large Image A reflective finish on the underside of the addition's roof helps the building to blend with its surroundings. Photo: Philippe Ruault Extra Large Image The 75-story Tour de Verre tower will stand adjacent to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Image: Courtesy Ateliers Jean Nouvel Extra Large Image An exposed steel superstructure is one key feature of the Tour de Verre. Image: Courtesy Ateliers Jean Nouvel Extra Large Image   Click on thumbnail images to view full-size pictures.