Bordeaux: The Latest Architecture and News

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Jean-Paul Viguier et Associés, in partnership with Eiffage and Woodeum, have won the competition for a 57 meter timber tower in the Saint-Jean Belcier district of Bordeaux, France. A tower and two shorter buildings, the 17,000 square meter mixed-use project contains housing, offices, and retail space, and is part of a larger master plan intent on spurring development in the vicinity of the Bordeaux-Saint-Jean railway station. The project name “Hyperion” is a reference to the world’s tallest living tree (a Sequoia sempervirens in Northern California) and emphasizes the proposal’s vanguard use of timber materials.

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The Bordeaux Wine Museum’s wooden structure has been completed, the first step in an ambitious project slated to open in 2016. Designed by XTU Architects, and situated along the coast of the river Garonne in Bordeaux, France, the museum aims to stand as a beacon and “guardian angel” against the skyline of the riverbank. Inspired by the timeless spirit of French wine, the building forms flow in a continuous space without corners, evoking the circular motion that awakens a wine before tasting.

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Architectural photographer Philippe Caumes has sent us images from the open match at Herzog & de Meuron's newly completed Bordeaux Stadium in France. Sometimes compared to a classical temple, the all-white, rectangular stadium is distinct with a forest of slender columns touching down on an inviting grand staircase that ushers fans into its 42,000-seat "bowl." Take a look inside, after the break.

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Based in Bordeaux and Bayonne, architecture studio Leibar&Seigneurin created a video to introduce their newest social housing project in Bordeaux. They believe that film can represent the fabric of architecture better than photography alone because it captures life and the passage of time. Throughout the video, they discuss their conceptual approach to dealing with this building’s context.

As part of the Semaine Digitale, in October Bordaux will host 1024 Architecture's Tesseract, an installation inspired by the so called "four-dimensional cube." Created from no more than ordinary scaffolding, a translucent fabric skin and a series of electronically controlled lights, the installation plays with complex geometrical compositions, as the light beams rapidly create and deconstruct shapes within the outer 10 metre cubic frame.

More on the installation, and 1024 Architecture, after the break

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OMA has won an international competition to design Pont Jean-Jacques Bosc, a bridge across the river Garonne in Bordeaux, France, that will link the municipalities of Bègles and Floriac. The 44m by 545m bridge, which will act as "a generous new public space" and "an urban planning intervention" for the city, giving priority to pedestrian traffic, is the first to be realized by OMA. It is scheduled for completion in 2018.

According to Clément Blanchet, director of OMA France, the bridge "is not the ‘event’ in the city, but a platform that can accommodate events of the city [...it] may be the least technical, least lyrical, but [it is] the most concise and effective structural solution.”

The architect's description of the project, after the break...

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