The Grand Palais was probably the most vital constructing of 2024

The ultimate mission on our checklist of the 25 most important buildings of the Twenty first century is the restoration of the Grand Palais in Paris by Chatillon Architectes, bookending our collection with two highly effective tales of reuse and renewal.

Few buildings garnered as a lot worldwide consideration in 2024 because the Grand Palais, despite the fact that it was constructed 124 years earlier.

The sweeping glass and metal construction on the Champs-Élysées reopened following its first main restoration, securing its place as a venue for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Video games.

It was a herculean effort led by the French studio Chatillon Architectes, which guided a staff of 1,000 artisans from over 50 corporations to show the mission round in below 4 years.

Although the Grand Palais was already one in all Paris’s most beloved landmarks, these efforts gave rise to what grew to become a centrepiece of the occasion. Echoing the ethos of the 2024 video games – touted because the greenest ever – it illustrated the worth of preserving architectural heritage.

It’s a becoming finish to our collection, which started with the Tate Fashionable – an artwork gallery within the shell of an deserted energy station accomplished in 2000 by Herzog & de Meuron.

Collectively, the tasks supply a masterclass on how a constructing’s historical past might be revered whereas being introduced as much as modern-day requirements with modern instruments, sending a pertinent message to the architectural neighborhood because it navigates an age of demolition.

The Grand Palais is arguably finest identified for its huge and complex barrel-vaulted atrium, or nave, which is crafted from greater than 6,000 tonnes of metal. It’s topped by the most important glass roof in Europe.

Upon its reopening, structure critic Stephen Zacks described the renovated constructing as “a show-stopping Twenty first-century centrepiece”.

In the meantime, the Monetary Instances hailed it as “an architectural cadavre exquis“, the place “in every single place you look there are treasures”.

A show-stopping Twenty first-century centrepieceStephen Zacks in Metropolis

Although the 72,000-square-metre landmark stole the limelight in 2024, the constructing’s significance runs to lengthy earlier than that.

Constructed to host the Paris Common Exhibition in 1900 to showcase French artwork, it has served as an ornate backdrop to many worldwide exhibitions and occasions, starting from Chanel vogue reveals to artwork gala’s together with Artwork Basel Paris.

Extra somberly, it was even used as a world struggle one army hospital and, in the course of the Nazi occupation of Paris, as an exhibition house for propaganda.

Chatillon Architectes’ ambition for the mission was to protect and have a good time as a lot of the unique Beaux-Arts construction as doable, honouring the unique imaginative and prescient of its architects Henri Deglane, Albert Louvet, Albert Thomas and Charles Girault.

Modifications have included reopening areas as soon as closed to the general public, and the carving out of a sightseeing route into its plan. Its constructing companies have additionally been modernised, bringing the constructing as much as the requirements of a modern-day occasions venue.

The size of labor was so unprecedented it required the studio to separate it into two phases, with the primary centred across the nave, making certain it was able to host fencing and taekwondo occasions within the Olympics.

We’ve approached the mission with a up to date mindset, making certain that the constructing is ready for its subsequent section of lifeFrancois Chatillon

This section additionally concerned enhancing the hyperlink between the Grand Palais and the encompassing gardens, whereas reinstating the constructing’s unique central axis throughout its H‑formed plan, reconnecting its three essential areas – together with the nave.

Within the nave itself, Chatillon Architectes restored the ornate balconies and improved escape routes, permitting its capability to extend by greater than 60 per cent.

The second section, which is but to finish, is targeted on its surrounding rooms. Its full reopening as a sporting and cultural occasions venue is predicted in 2025, when the Centre Pompidou will briefly transfer into the galleries.

“The size of the mission is sort of unbelievable, from the design stage to the development,” studio founder Francois Chatillon instructed Dezeen on a tour of the constructing earlier than its opening.

“We’ve explored hundreds of archival paperwork to actually perceive the constructing and its unique intentions,” he continued.

“Our focus has at all times been to honour and restore one of the best of the constructing’s previous however not to do that blindly. We’ve approached the mission with a up to date mindset, making certain that the constructing is ready for its subsequent section of life and that, above all, it’s a functioning constructing for contemporary society.”

When French president Emmanuel Macron introduced plans for the mission it was met with scepticism because of the fast timeframe by which it was to be delivered. Subsequent to the restoration of the fire-damaged Notre-Dame Cathedral, it’s reportedly the nation’s largest public constructing mission.

“4 years in the past, we have been instructed that it was nonetheless loopy,” mentioned Macron of the Grand Palais restoration. “However now the entire world will rediscover the Grand Palais as a spot of creation, of exhibition, of data, of welcoming the general public.”

Giving the constructing again to the general public on this means was at all times the overarching purpose of the studio, in line with Chatillon.

“Our essential goal from the very starting was to make the Grand Palais a public constructing once more,” he mentioned. “In latest occasions, it’s a constructing that has been accessible occasionally however not doable to actually expertise – it grew to become a monument that was usually solely noticed from afar.”

“We’ve been capable of make the Grand Palais a functioning constructing as soon as once more and one which the general public can now really take pleasure in and discover.”

Did we get it proper? Was the Grand Palais renovation by Chatillon Architectes probably the most vital constructing accomplished in 2024? Tell us within the feedback. With all 25 buildings revealed, we can be operating a ballot to find out probably the most vital constructing of the Twenty first century to date.

This text is a part of Dezeen’s Twenty first-Century Structure: 25 Years 25 Buildings collection, which seems on the most important structure of the Twenty first century to date. For the collection, we now have chosen probably the most influential constructing from every of the primary 25 years of the century.

The illustration is by Jack Bedford and the images is by Laurent Kronental.

Twenty first Century Structure: 25 Years 25 Buildings

2000: Tate Fashionable by Herzog & de Meuron
2001: Gando Major College by Diébédo Francis Kéré
2002: Bergisel Ski Bounce by Zaha Hadid
2003: Walt Disney Live performance Corridor by Frank Gehry
2004: Quinta Monroy by Elemental
2005: Moriyama Home by Ryue Nishizawa
2006: Madrid-Barajas airport by RSHP and Estudio Lamela
2007: Oslo Opera Home by Snøhetta
2008: Museum of Islamic Artwork by I M Pei
2009: Murray Grove by Waugh Thistleton Architects
2010: Burj Khalifa by SOM
2011: Nationwide September 11 Memorial by Handel Architects
2012: CCTV Headquarters by OMA
2013: Cardboard Cathedral by Shigeru Ban
2014: Bosco Verticale by Stefano Boeri
2015: UTEC Lima campus by Grafton Architects
2016: Transformation of 530 Dwellings by Lacaton & Vassal, Frédéric Druot and Christophe Hutin
2017: Apple Park by Foster + Companions
2018: Amager Bakke by BIG
2019: Goldsmith Avenue by Mikhail Riches with Cathy Hawley
2020: Anandaloy by Anna Heringer
2021: Sara Kulturhus by White Arkitekter
2022: Reggio College by Andrés Jaque
2023: Third House by Studio Saar
2024: Grand Palais renovation by Chatillon Architectes