MOdA Headquarters of the Paris Bar Association / Renzo Piano Building Workshop

MOdA Headquarters of the Paris Bar Association / Renzo Piano Building Workshop  - Exterior PhotographyMOdA Headquarters of the Paris Bar Association / Renzo Piano Building Workshop  - Exterior Photography, FacadeMOdA Headquarters of the Paris Bar Association / Renzo Piano Building Workshop  - Interior Photography, GlassMOdA Headquarters of the Paris Bar Association / Renzo Piano Building Workshop  - Interior Photography, Stairs, BeamMOdA Headquarters of the Paris Bar Association / Renzo Piano Building Workshop  - More Images+ 28

  • Client: Ordre des Avocats de Paris + Sogelym-Dixence, Ordre des Avocats de Paris, Sogelym-Dixence
  • Design Team: C.Guézet, S.Giorgio-Marrano, B. Plattner, P. Colonna, S.Cimino, C.Guézet with S.Giorgio-Marrano, C.Maxwell-Mahon, J.Moolhuijzen, A.Bagatella, D.Tsagkaropoulos, O.Aubert, C.Colson, Y.Kyrkos
  • Structure, Mep, Sustainability, Civil Engineering: AIA Ingenierie
  • Lighting: Franck Franjou
  • Facade: RFR
  • A/V Systems: Labeyrie & Associés (
  • Fire Prevention: NAMIXIS
  • Cost Consultant: SLETEC
  • City: Paris
  • Country: France
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MOdA Headquarters of the Paris Bar Association / Renzo Piano Building Workshop  - Exterior Photography, Facade
© Sergio Grazia

Text description provided by the architects. The MOdA, the headquarters of the Paris Bar Association), is an integral part of the new Cité Judiciaire, a group of buildings dedicated to the legal profession, currently under construction in Paris’s 17th arrondissement. Symbolically transparent, the life of the building, its activity, and its comings and goings will be clearly visible through its facade. The MOdA is sited so that its building fits with and references the much larger Palais de Justice (law courts) building, while standing proudly independent from it, a clear entity in its own right. Structurally sophisticated to deal with a site that sits on top of the Metro, it is also an important part of the new public urban spaces being generated here that will invigorate this neighbourhood.

The new Cité Judiciaire is in the Clichy Batignolles development zone, in the north-west corner of Paris. The site is bounded by the Avenue de la Porte de Clichy to the north, the périphérique city ring-road to the west, the rail lines into the Gare St Lazare to the south, and the Square de Batignolles and Rue Cardinet to the east.

MOdA Headquarters of the Paris Bar Association / Renzo Piano Building Workshop  - Exterior Photography
© Sergio Grazia

With large office and apartment buildings around its periphery, the heart of the development centres on two key elements:

-the new Palais de Justice (the law courts), with which are associated the Direction Régionale Police Judiciare de Paris (the regional judicial police headquarters), and the Maison de l’Ordre de l’Avocats, (the Paris Bar Association) and which together constitute the new Cité Judiciaire;

-Martin Luther King Park, a green lung for the city, a planted, green space for relaxation, but also the meeting point of routes across the site, a pedestrianised area that will drive and animate urban activity.

MOdA Headquarters of the Paris Bar Association / Renzo Piano Building Workshop  - Exterior Photography
© Sergio Grazia
MOdA Headquarters of the Paris Bar Association / Renzo Piano Building Workshop  - Image 25 of 33
Section

Three key ideas guided the design of this building. Firstly, transparency – an important symbolic ideal for the institutions responsible for maintaining justice. The MOdA building will not only embody this ideal but communicate it too. With its highly transparent facade, the building’s architecture puts everything inside on display, activity, and contents. As part of this new image of justice for Paris, the staircases, the library, the salle des marchés (the trading room), and the board room and all the life of the building are clearly visible behind the facade. The shape of the building is part of this too: a sloping plane on the facade clearly references the shape of the auditorium just behind it, and the level of the building’s roof terrace is perfectly aligned with that of the first layer of the law courts, demonstrating important equality.

MOdA Headquarters of the Paris Bar Association / Renzo Piano Building Workshop  - Interior Photography, Glass
© Sergio Grazia

The second idea relates to the building’s context. The MOdA’s main facade is orientated towards the main concourse in front of the law courts, a space that is a carefully modulated mix of hard surfaces and planting and mature trees. Supplementing the Martin Luther King park, this square will serve as a space for meeting and a place for exchange, a new public space for the life of the neighbourhood.

MOdA Headquarters of the Paris Bar Association / Renzo Piano Building Workshop  - Exterior Photography, Facade
© Sergio Grazia

The third factor, inseparable from the first two, is functionality. The Maison de l’Ordre des Avocats will become the principal site in Paris for bar professionals, alongside the existing MOdA offices on Place Dauphine (in the centre of Paris), and dedicated spaces to be created inside the new Palais de Justice. The new building will house a 170-seat auditorium, a library, the administrative bodies and offices of the Bar Association, the offices of CARPA (the Lawyers' Pecuniary Payment Fund), the board room and the Bar President’s office; in short a place essential to the lawyers’ work, only two steps from the law courts, but free of its constraints. The organization of the various functions within this space was strongly influenced by the desire to make them easily accessible.

MOdA Headquarters of the Paris Bar Association / Renzo Piano Building Workshop  - Interior Photography, Stairs, Beam
© Sergio Grazia

Part of the building is positioned directly above a Paris metro station which limits the scope for traditional foundations. By constructing with steel, huge cantilevers can be incorporated into the design. The nose of the building, where it tapers towards Avenue de la Porte de Clichy, will be suspended via a system of masts and tension rods located on each side of the two principal facades. Lifting the building in this way also creates the potential for extra transparency at the ground floor level to either side of the building’s core.

MOdA Headquarters of the Paris Bar Association / Renzo Piano Building Workshop  - Interior Photography, Kitchen, Table, Chair, Windows
© Michel Denancé
MOdA Headquarters of the Paris Bar Association / Renzo Piano Building Workshop  - Image 26 of 33
Office typical plan
MOdA Headquarters of the Paris Bar Association / Renzo Piano Building Workshop  - Interior Photography, Living Room
© Michel Denancé

Meanwhile, the cutaway slope under the auditorium opens views through to Boulevard Berthier and Martin Luther King Park. This section of the facade which also oversails the concourse is supported by two slim steel columns. Despite the dense complexity of its functional and architectural aspirations and the constraints of the site, the building has been designed to appear as light and transparent as possible. At the same time, the alignment of its roof terrace with that of the law courts generates a strong horizontal that frames and anchors the concourse.

MOdA Headquarters of the Paris Bar Association / Renzo Piano Building Workshop  - Exterior Photography
© Sergio Grazia

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Project location

Address:17th arrondissement of Paris, 75017 Paris, France

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Location to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address.
About this office
Cite: "MOdA Headquarters of the Paris Bar Association / Renzo Piano Building Workshop " 28 Aug 2020. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/946533/moda-headquarters-of-the-paris-bar-association-renzo-piano-building-workshop> ISSN 0719-8884

© Sergio Grazia

巴黎律师协会MOdA总部 / 伦佐·皮亚诺工作室

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