THE DOCKS OF PARIS - CITY OF FASHION AND DESIGN

The industrial buildings, the Magasins Généraux, located on the Left Bank between the Gare d'Austerlitz and the Bibliothèque François Mitterand, have undergone an audacious architectural renovation. French and New Zealand architects Dominique Jakob and Brendan Macfarlane have been chosen to remodel it. This new site will be home to the French fashion institute, an event space for events dedicated to fashion and design, as well as businesses. In Paris, the answer to every civic problem might actually be: more fashion! Indeed, anchoring the Docks de Paris project revival of a downtrodden Left Bank industrial site along the quai D'Austerlitz, La Cite de la Mode et du Design is set to be the capital's fourth museum dedicated to matters sartorial. As the name indicates, this one will also address a broader spectrum of design, and up the fab factor by incorporating designer boutiques and a chic rooftop restaurant from the people behind Georges, the Pompidou's futuristic eatery in the sky.

The Docks of Paris is a long, thin building built in concrete at the turn of the last century. It was a depot for goods brought up the Seine by barge, which were deposited, and then transferred to dray or train.The city of Paris launched a competition to create a new cultural program and building on this site. Whether or not to keep the existing concrete structure was a choice left to the participants.Jakob+MacFarlane opted to retain the existing structure and use it to form and influence the new project. The existing structure was built in 1907 as an industrial warehouse facility for the Port of Paris and was the first reinforced concrete building in Paris. The 3 story structure was conceived as a series of 4 pavilions, each with one 10m wide bay and four 7.5m wide bays. On the level corresponding to the Quai Austerlitz, the 10m bay is accessible from the street with the other bays roughly 1.25m higher, facilitating the storing and loading of materials for transport. The concept of the new project is known as a ‘Plug-Over’. Here, the idea was to create a new external skin that is inspired primarily by the flux of the Seine and the promenades along the sides of the river banks. The skin both protects the existing structure and forms a new layer containing most of the public circulation systems and added program, as well as creating a new top floor to the existing building.