Nantes: The Latest Architecture and News

Located along the Loire riverfront in the center of the city of Nantes, this memorial, designed by Wodiczko + Bonder, is a metaphorical and emotional evocation of the struggle for the abolition of slavery. With the aim of being above all historic, the project still continues into the present and proposes a physical transformation and symbolic reinforcement of 350 meters of the coast of the Loire along Quai de la Fosse. This working memorial includes the adaptation of a pre-existing underground residual space, a product of the construction of the Loire embankments and port during the XVIII, XIX, and XX Centuries. It provides space and means for remembering and thinking about slavery and the slave trade; commemorating resistance and the abolitionist struggle; celebrating the historic act of abolition; and for bringing the visitor closer to the continuing struggle against present-day forms of slavery. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The proposal for the New Building for the Nantes’ Conservatory & the Pole of Higher Learning Performing Arts by RAUM + l’Escaut proposes to open the different practices to the city. Dance studios and music classrooms create a perception of artistic practices from the outside and make it readable within this new cultural center of the Nantes Island. Beyond the shared nature of the equipment, transdisciplinary practices will be offered by a set of situations that offer the linking of different disciplines and will thus create a direct link between the building and operation of contemporary pedagogies relating to higher education. More images and architects’ description after the break.