Cafè das Artistes

In the urban fabric of Paris, it is clear the importance and fundamental value of the block. It is often well marked by the buildings that constitute it. Indeed, it is the same building
that defines the block. From this consideration comes the project for the artist’s cafe in the Parisian district of Montparnasse.
The designed building occupies almost entirely to the area assigned by the competition, that is the current Square Gaston Baty (which has a triangular-shaped ground plan), through a trapezoidal-shaped planimetry, obtained by “slicing” of the northern vertice of the originary square triangle. In this point is collocated the entrance to cafe.
In elevation, the building consists of two floors which enclose an inner courtyard / garden. About the internal functions, at the ground floor are present the typical functions of a cafe, with: two dining rooms, bar area, a kitchen with adjoining bathroom for staff, a warehouse, a guest bathroom and winter garden; finally, there are the service rooms, in which there are the stairs and elevators that lead to the upper floor, where there are rooms devoted to artistic and cultural aspects. On the second floor, in fact, there are: a reading room with armchairs and sofas, a co-working room, a conference room, an exhibition hall, a bathroom and two open space areas for multiple uses that are placed within the load-bearing boxes, and characterized by a completely glazed roofs.
The two floors differ not only for the functions, but also from the stylistic composition of the facade, establishing two different relationships with the city. On the ground floor, two of four building facades (east side e south side) are built by curtain wall in trasparent glass, giving to building both visual lightness that direct connection with urban environment. The west facade, instead, is made by curtain wall in frosted glass, in order to avoid direct visual contact of the internal service spaces with the exterior urban environment without altering, at the same time, the visual lightness expressed in the south and east sides. In this floor, the only wall elements are the four “boxes” built of reinforced concrete, which, as a pile dwelling, support the whole building.
These elements, true “cornerstones” of the project, range from the foundations up to the attic of the building coverage, and are clearly recognizable in both levels of the structure. However, even if the “boxes” are clearly visible through the windows on the ground floor, on the first floor are masked externally by a brise-soleil that runs along the perimeter of the structure.
The façades towards the inner courtyard are all made in curtain wall in trasparent glass, showing an “introverted” character of the first floor (external facade is “closed”, whereas internal facade is “open”).
The entrance to the cafe, as previously said, is situated on the northern side of the building and is directed to the big boulevard Edgar Quinet. On the ground floor, the entrance is “marked” by two splayed walls that create an “invitation” and that open directly to the courtyard, interrupting at the same time, the curtain wall in glass that encloses the perimeter in the others sides of the building. In front of the entrance there is a triangular body of water, that planimetrically recomposes the original triangular shape of the Square.
The project has also redesigned Jolivet street, enriching flower beds, body of water and outdoor tables.
The artistic aspect pervades the entire structure designed. Books
about all the arts will be located in each corner of the structure,
from the bar to the exhibition hall.
Even the walls are steeped in art and talk about it; They were
selected some canvases of 8 masters of painting lived in Paris in the twenty century (Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Joan Miro, Claude Monet, Amedeo Modigliani, Henri Matisse and Vincent Van Gogh) that will be painted on the walls of structure, so that it will never be anonymous. The brise-soleil is designed in this way for seem an immense white sheet with touches of red, blue and yellow (the primary colors). Anyway, both the brise-soleil that the glazed roofs, seem to come out of a painting of another master of painting lived in Paris, Piet Mondrian.
The building has been designed to be a “home” of the art and to become a place beloved by many artists who frequent the streets of Ville Lumière.