Jean Nouvel

Jean Nouvel (Fumel, 12 August 1945) is a French architect.

In 1964, he enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux in the Architecture course. In 1966, he was admitted as the first to the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris (ENSBA).

After working for Claude Parent, the father of the "oblique function", and in the intellectual movement of the architect Paul Virilio, he founded his first agency in 1970 with François Seigneur.

In 1971, he received the DPLG architect's diploma and, thanks to his meeting with the critic Georges Boudaille, he became an architect for the Paris Biennale. He then worked as a scenography designer for the architecture and design section of the exhibition Les Années 50 at the Centre Pompidou in 1988, and more recently for the exhibition Le Futur du travail and La Mobilité for Expo 2000 in Hannover. In 1976, he met the scenographer Jacques le Marquet who introduced him to the world of theatre and staging.

Jean Nouvel has always taken militant, sometimes polemical positions on issues and decisions about architecture and the city. In 1976 he co-founded the movement of French architects March 1976. The following year he co-founded the Sindicato dell'Architettura and was one of the main organizers of the international consultation for the redevelopment of the Quartier des Halles in Paris.

In 1980 he founded the Architecture Biennale within the Paris Biennale.

Nouvel has won numerous architecture and design awards, and has received various distinctions for his work. In 1980 he was awarded the silver medal of the Académie d'Architecture. In 1983 he was named an honorary doctor by the University of Buenos Aires. In 1987 he received the "Grand Prix d'Architecture" for his entire work and the "Equerre d'Argent" for his minimalist furniture creations. His work has been exhibited in several international museums such as the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Exposeum Museum of Modern Art and the Centre Pompidou art and culture center in Paris.

In 2008 he was awarded the Pritzker Prize. In 2010, according to the magazine D'architectures, Jean Nouvel's studio was second in France (after Renzo Piano's) in terms of turnover, with 39 million and 465 thousand euros earned.

In March 2012 it was made official that Nouvel would be the one to realize the project for the headquarters of the Fendi Foundation, desired by Alda Fendi, between the Imperial Forums and the Circus Maximus, in the heart of Rome.

Nouvel studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was a founding member of Mars 1976 and the Syndicat de l'Architecture. He has received numerous prestigious awards throughout his career, including the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (technically, the prize was awarded to the Institut du Monde Arabe designed by Nouvel), the Wolf Prize in Arts in 2005, and the Pritzker Prize in 2008. Numerous museums and architecture centers have presented retrospectives of his work…Wikipedia…>>