Atelier Christian de Portzamparc: The Latest Architecture and News

The Suzhou Bay Cultural Center is part of a series of emblematic projects initiated by the city's Wujiang Lakefront Masterplan. Located on the shores of Lake Tai, the deserted plain was discovered by Christian de Portzamparc in 2013, while rethinking the future city. It was then built so quickly, that the architect never ceased to be amazed after every visit. Alive, it is like a real Manhattan of towers organized through a grid of streets and avenues, bordering a central pedestrian axis that heads towards the lake. It was clear that the meeting of this pedestrian axis and the great lake would generate an exceptional place, and it was on this site, on each side, that the cultural center was to be implanted in the architecture competition.

Born on the 5th of May 1944 in what was at the time the French Protectorate of Morocco, French architect Christian de Portzamparc had doubts about continuing with architecture while studying in the 1960s, questioning modernist ideals and the discipline's lack of freedom compared to art. Instead, he spent a decade attempting to understand the role of architecture, before returning triumphantly with a new model of iterative urban design that emphasized open neighborhoods based around landmark "poles of attraction" and a varied series of high-profile commissions that combine a sense of purpose and place.

+ 12