Philharmonie de Paris — Facade Detail, Jean Nouvel

4 October 2017 · Paris

Two surface treatments, one building. The Philharmonie de Paris wraps its upper volume in matte perforated leaf-patterned panels and then breaks open into mirror-polished stainless steel scales that ripple across the facade like something between architecture and organism. Jean Nouvel designed the building to dissolve its own edges — up close, the contrast between the flat graphic cladding and the undulating reflective scales is where that idea becomes legible. The overcast Paris sky sits in the reflection, pulling the building and the light into the same plane.