The Red House, Paris

Two main industrial factory spaces circle the house, dating from 1950 and 1960. (In some parts, we can still see the warehouse frames and some different concrete striations on three levels.) These transformed into four separate exhibition spaces combining to 14,000 square feet total, and they lead the visitor to circulate in a periphery path around the entire museum.

Unbeknownst to many until they reach the end of their journey at the restaurant, this periphery path forms a circumference around the original house. The house was preserved and painted red, forming the core of the museum and enclosing the administrative parts of the gallery. (Shown in solid black poché on this floor plan.)

One major move was to break up the floor slabs of all the encircling factory warehouses, in order to create huge vertical volumes of space for contemporary art exhibitions. The glass roof covering the central house was preserved, as were the original proportions and structural system of metal rivets.

Paradoxical spaces of the existing site and building are adjacent and can often still be felt today. For example, certain rooms seem vast and abandoned, others have low ceilings with original metal structure and stonework intact, yet a few steps later, one can find the typical museum "white cube" sterility of exhibition space.

There were definitely challenges to creatively navigate during rehabilitation—for instance, in rendering the glass roof above the metal structure to become fire-resistant, firewall partitions were used for the new ceiling construction.

Bordered by glass walls and open to the sky, the dining patio sits behind the house and is a natural outlet for the gallery's restaurant.

It is also the site of a chosen artist's work three times a year. In summertime, the patio installation has a particular constraint: it must be fully accessible to visitors and functional as a cafe terrace space.

This year, Christophe Gonnet graces the outdoor island with a wooden architectural proposition where loungers can seek isolation or refuge from the rest of the surroundings, not unlike a forest.

According to the architect's vision, upon entering the Red House, you could forget that you are in Paris, and even get lost inside without any notion of the neighborhood geography or urban context.

Given that most of the light streams down from clerestories in the absence of horizontal views, I certainly felt as if I occupied a small, undisturbed island quite separate from the bustle of the rest of the city. I emerged on Boulevard de la Bastille feeling fresh yet slightly disoriented, and proceeded to stick my nose into the adjoining bookstore, Bookstorming, for another undisturbed spell of time.