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The Pritzker jury wrote, "The iconic Guthrie Theater (2006) in Minneapolis, Minnesota both merges and contrasts with its surroundings. It is responsive to the city and the nearby Mississippi River, and yet, it is also an expression of theatricality and the magical world of performance. In his recently completed Musée du Quai Branly (Quai Branly Museum) for Paris’s significant collection of indigenous art of Africa, Oceania, Asia, and the Americas, Nouvel designed a bold, unorthodox building with unusual spaces in which objects are displayed—and understood—in new ways. Many of the materials used in the interiors, including wall and ceiling decorations by native artists, evoke the countries of their origin."

That "theatricality" is no accident. Nouvel has often compared his role as architect to that of the film director. In an interview published in El Croquis in 2002, he said, "Everything is theatrical. I have worked for a long time as a scenographer, even on social housing…scenography is the relationship between objects and matter that we want to display to somebody who is watching. In effect, in every building there is a way of proving a 360° view over the landscape, as in Lucerne. The use of the word scenography doesn't bother me as long as it is used in the right sense."

In other interviews, he has often said that architecture and the cinema are very close. "Architecture exists, like cinema, in a dimension of time and movement. One thinks, conceives and reads a building in terms of sequences. To erect a building is to predict and seek effects of contrast and linkage bound up with the succession of spaces through which one passes," Nouvel explains.

The reference to Lucerne is to his Cultural and Conference Center completed in 2000 in that Swiss city. Nouvel has described it as "an example of the principle of framing the landscape. It is a building on an exceptional site, by the lake, facing the town. The entire town can be seen from the foyer."

"A student at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris at the time of the 1968 uprising when politics took over from design, this eager young man up from the Garonne went to work for Claude Parent, who, with his friend the philosopher Paul Virilio, inspired Jean to bypass the tiresome nature of Postmodernism and the subsequent Revival-Modernism that were the orthodoxy of Paris in the 1970s and 1980s." — Peter Cook in AW No. 52

Background

Nouvel was born in Fumel in southwestern France in 1945, the son of Roger Nouvel, a history teacher who went on to become the chief county school superintendent, and Renée Nouvel, a high school English teacher. His father's duties in administration required them to move around frequently, and by the time Jean was eight, they moved to Sarlat, a place Nouvel characterizes as a "medieval town with a lot of architecture."

In those years, he confesses he often slipped out to go to the cinema, an influence that would become important in later years. He was sixteen before one of his professors taught him to draw and truly introduced him to the arts. Up to that time, his parents had placed great emphasis on mathematics and languages. He feels that they were steering him toward a career in education or engineering. When he told them he would like to attend the Beaux Arts school, they objected.   >>>

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SUBSCRIPTION SAMPLE The Torre Agbar high-rise in Barcelona was designed by Ateliers Jean Nouvel in collaboration with b720 Arquitectura, Garcia-Ventosa Arquitectura, and Leopoldo Rodés Arquitecto. Photo: Ateliers Jean Nouvel SUBSCRIPTION SAMPLE Torre Agbar thrusts into Barcelona's skyline from the Placa de las Glories. Photo: Iñigo Bujedo Aguirre The pixelated exterior envelope of Torre Agbar affects interior lighting. Photo: Iñigo Bujedo Aguirre Sightseers at the base of Torre Agbar. Photo: Ateliers Jean Nouvel Color flares over the surface of Torre Agbar, starting with hot reds at the base and cooling to blues higher up. Photo: Ateliers Jean Nouvel SUBSCRIPTION SAMPLE Nouvel's work at the Opéra Nouvel in Lyon, France, topped the building with a multistory steel-and-glass half-cylinder. Photo: Philippe Ruault   Click on thumbnail images to view full-size pictures.