The renovation of the quays has changed people’s perception of Bordeaux, by opening the left and right banks of the Garonne to one another and both sides to the river itself. Are you pleased with it?

It’s very good. For maybe 20 years, it was an abandoned zone. There were 20 hangars [sheds] between the river and the city, and they removed one through 13, and now it’s like a garden. But in my opinion, they cut too much of the spirit—-we lost the industrial sense. I said to the director of the port authority of the remaining hangars: Repair them very economically, then open them to real local entrepreneurs. But the port authority didn’t want to assume the price, so it sold the hangars altogether, and now it’s too commercial—-there’s no diversity.

Your firm, Brochet Lajus Pueyo, designed some of the infrastructure for the new tramway. Has the new system changed the city?

Yeah, 100 percent. Before the tramway, you had the old city preserved for one part of the population, and everyone else was outside. Now that you have lines from the banlieues [outskirts] to the center, you have a different population in the city—-for example, in front of the Grand-Théâtre, a very high-level place, you have a much more lively mix. The whole society is meeting, it’s incredible. Also, all along the lines, where buildings were abandoned, people have bought them and are living there now.

The way the tram glides along on recessed rails and without overhead wires, it almost feels like there is a human presence.

We have a more simple, elegant tram than other cities in France. Like it’s floating on the stone.

I’m surprised to find so many major streets reserved for pedestrians in such a large city.

It has improved the city. And every first Sunday of every month, the whole city is for pedestrians. All day long you can walk wherever you want.

People love the historic architecture in Bordeaux, but are there notable examples of modernism?

I think Richard Rogers’s law courts represent the most significant new architecture in the center of the town. There is interesting work concentrated in the Mériadeck district—-interesting from  an urbanist standpoint, not specifically one building or another. Around Bordeaux, we can speak about the work of Jacques Salier from the 1960s, on the Arcachon Bay—-very beautiful houses, like in California, close to the work of Richard Neutra. There is one very famous house designed by Rem Koolhaas, the house of Madame Lemoine. And you have a beautiful hotel from Jean Nouvel, the St. James.

Where would you suggest we go?

It’s not a good thing for an architect to like a ruined landscape, but I like the area near our office in the bassins à flot. The abandoned buildings, the Base Sous-Marine—-the ambience is part of the nostalgia of urban life. I also like the theater our office rebuilt, the Centre Dramatique National, in front of l’Église Sainte-Croix. There is a good restaurant there, Café du Théâtre.

Is there something to see only a bordelais would know?

Place Georges de Porto-Riche, near the Grand-Théâtre. It’s where the oldest prostitutes in Bordeaux are—these women are historic monuments. All day long they sit on seats in front of their doors, laughing when you walk in front of them, like women from another time.

Do they have clients?

The clients are as old as the prostitutes. Retired men with briefcases, pretending to go to their offices, but there are no offices there, and you see them walking back and forth. And the restaurant from which you can see this ménage is Le Bouchon Bordelais.

It’s perhaps an obvious question, but do you drink Bordeaux?

I like lots of wine, but often it’s wine of friends. In Médoc, Château Ducru-Beaucaillou, the wine of Bruno Borie, and in Pomerol, Vieux Château Certan.

What’s one thing a visitor must do?

See the historic city, but more important is the second thing, which is to leave Bordeaux, for the forest, Arcachon Bay, the sea, so you can see why we live so well here. It’s not only the Garonne and a bunch of 18th-century stones.

Is there anything you don’t like about Bordeaux?

The dark face of classicism. Classicism can be a very good thing when you study architecture, but for a part of the population, some people working in wine, classicism is a barrier. It lets people imagine that only one way of doing things is correct. And there are many new ways to live in Bordeaux.

It’s not a reserved, bourgeois city?

That is an idea from outside. Bordeaux has always been a very open, very welcoming place. At the architecture school, where I am president, it’s the same: The system is exhaustive, but open—-there’s no one philosophy; the references are multiple. You know, during the French Revolution, there were very violent parts, but in Bordeaux it was the Girondin, who were more flexible, adaptable. It’s a question, maybe, of context, of being in the southwest.