Avenue Pits Stop?

Architectural Review, The, March, 2001

A car showroom for a French manufacturer on the Champs Elysees in Paris has been designed as a cultural centre.

Franck Hammoutene's Modernist essays, designed with sombre elegance and a great deal of drama, are imbued with influences drawn from the work of '60s artists such as Richard Serra and Carl Andre. They exploit formal simplicity and the inherent poetry of industrial materials and their conjunctions.

L'Atelier Renault at 53 Champs-Elysees, is the latest of a clutch of schemes by him in Paris, which include the Musee de la Musique at La Villette (AR May 1997) and La Maison Blanche, the stylish restaurant near the Eiffel Tower. Like advertisements (and Jean Nouvel's building for Cartier), which work by association and only obliquely betray their subjects, L'Atelier Renault is more fashionable restaurant and bar than car showroom. Renault describes it as a cultural centre.

The strategy for promoting the firm is not new. In 1911, Renault opened the first car showroom at 51 Champs Elysees and, in 1930, enlarged it by annexing adjoining premises. In the early '60s the site was redeveloped, and the showroom reinstated and reopened as the Pub Renault. More than an exhibition space, the Pub had a restaurant and was famous for ice-cream and cocktails, in its heyday attracting up to 2000 visitors a day. By 1999 it was felt to be outmoded and Hammoutene was commissioned to redesign the space.

Remodelling and the creation of L'Atelier Renault took full advantage of a triple-height space achieved by stripping everything out and back to the essential structure. A full-height glass wall onto the Champs-Elysees (designed to absorb movement caused by passage of RER trains underground), admits light into the deep plan, makes Renault a visible presence on the avenue and hints to passers-by at the height and extent of the space.

Hammoutene's scheme starts where the bandes dessinees (strip cartoons) so beloved of the French leave off, for woven around the idea of animation, it allows you a succession of animated frames. The ground floor is exhibition space (offices are distributed around the peripheries), where shows -- or events -- will change at intervals throughout the year and be the focus of a place where people can meet. Criss-crossing the hall overhead is a series of bridges, slung across the hall at different levels from peripheral mezzanines. Up here is where you find the restaurant and bar and where you sit and eat at tables set out along the bridges, looking down on people below and out through the glass wall into the busy avenue. A serpentine metallic bar on the main mezzanine extends into intimate islands of armchairs and low tables placed alongside and overlooking the tree-lined pavement. Visitors are participants in a perpetual cavalcade -- a microcosm of activity -- arriving, departing, meeting, separating, moving up and down the big staircase and across bridges.

Hammoutene's background to perpetual motion is restrained. Characteristically, forms are simple, junctions articulated and the palette of colours confined to those of a few materials -- warm wood, cool silvery metal, grey concrete and glass.

Architect

Atelier Franck Hammoutene, Paris

Project team

Franck Hammoutene, Martine zilliox, Kaan Coskun, Andrei Ferraru, Serge Atallah, Halim Faidi, Sylvie Mauduit, Stephane Quigna. Tran Viet Khoan

Structural engineer

Quillery

Facade studies

RFR

Heating, ventilation and air conditioning Sept

Photographs

Paul Raftery

1. L'Atelier's grand shop window onto Champs Elysees reveals the various levels and activities within.

2. Extension of the bar alongside the tree-lined pavement. Furniture designed by the architect.

3. Opening exhibition below bridges designed, by Gattl & Washer, around new Avantlme car. Furniture by Christophe Pillet.

4. Bridge dining area. Warm wood clads ceiling, walls and bridge. Tables and club chairs (at back) by architect.

5. Serpentine metallic bar, designed by architect.