Alberto Campo Baeza and Raphaël Gabrion’s Louvre Design Ties for First Place

Winning joint first prize in the recent competition hosted by the Louvre museum, Alberto Campo Baeza and Raphaël Gabrion have proposed a dark, cubic volume for the combined conservation facility and gallery to be built in Liévin. Though the final commission for the project was awarded to the other first place winner, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, the proposal by Campo Baeza and Gabrion offers an interesting take on the relationship between art and architecture.

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Rendering of the project. Image Courtesy of Alberto Campo Baeza
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Interior rendering. Image Courtesy of Alberto Campo Baeza

The Louvre Liévin competition was spurred by the success of SANAA's Louvre Lens, prompting the museum to investigate options for another outpost to hold and preserve around 250,000 artworks from the museum's collection. Sited very close to Lens, the former mining landscape of Liévin partly inspired the low-slung, brooding presence of the proposal, described by Alberto Campo Baeza as "a fortress capable of securely guarding those treasures."

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Building model. Image Courtesy of Alberto Campo Baeza
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Sectional model of the building. Image Courtesy of Alberto Campo Baeza

Named "Le bateau ivre" (The Drunken Boat) by the architects, the proposal was also inspired by Arthur Rimbaud's 1871 poem of the same name, echoing the poem's strict A/B/A/B structure in its crisp shape, and calling to mind the shape of a boat in its form. In the long, low podium, the design incorporated all of the conservation workshop areas and services, with the gallery portion of the building taking a prominent position in the emerging "chimney" of the boat.

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Plan and longitudinal section. Image Courtesy of Alberto Campo Baeza

To further strengthen the relationship of the building with the artwork it houses and protects, Campo Baeza and Gabrion also produced three postcard images, inserting their design into some of the Louvre's most prized works. In one, the building is inserted into the background of Millet’s The Angelus; in another, a model of the building is substituted as the focus of Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin's Boy with a Spinning Top; finally, the building shimmers on the horizon in Monet's Soleil Levant.

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The design inserted into Millet's "The Angelus". Image Courtesy of Alberto Campo Baeza
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A "model" of the design inserted into Chardin's "Boy with a Spinning Top". Image Courtesy of Alberto Campo Baeza
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The design inserted into Monet's "Soleil Levant". Image Courtesy of Alberto Campo Baeza
  • Architects

  • Location

    Liévin, France
  • Design Team at Alberto Campo Baeza

    Alberto Campo Baeza, Elena Jiménez, Tommaso Campiotti, María Pérez de Camino, Imanol Iparraguirre
  • Additional Collaborators

    Ignacio Aguirre and Alejandro Cervilla
  • Project Year

    2015
  • Photographs

    Courtesy of Alberto Campo Baeza
  • Location

    Liévin, France
  • Project Year

    2015
  • Photographs

    Courtesy of Alberto Campo Baeza
About this office
Cite: Rory Stott. "Alberto Campo Baeza and Raphaël Gabrion’s Louvre Design Ties for First Place" 24 Jul 2015. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/770781/alberto-campo-baeza-and-raphael-gabrion-tie-for-first-place-in-louvre-competiton> ISSN 0719-8884

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