Hugues Fontenas Architectes Conservation and restoration centre for the artistic heritage of Corsica in Calvi

client

Collectivité territoriale de Corse

architect

Hugues Fontenas

assistant architect

Julie Deglesne

site architect

Vincent Delmas

associate architect

Isabelle Latappy

landscape

OLM

engineering

TEC.CO (structure), BETHAC (mechanics).

cost surveyor

MDETC

preservation

In Extenso

built area

2 500 m²

cost

4 700 000 € HT

calendar

2007 – 2015

programme

Preservation centre with restoration workshops, storage rooms, administrative and educational centre with exhibition space, conference hall, library, teaching studios.

architectural design

Within the walls of the former Fort Charlet, built in 1845, the preservation and restoration centre’s main architectural element is a new building to houses the core activities (logistics facilities, restoration workshops, storage rooms, etc.). An existing building is also being restored to contain an exhibition space, a conference room, a documentation centre, educational workshops and administrative services.
The new building, conceived as a process tool of almost industrial nature, fits tightly into the strict geometry of the fort’s inner courtyard, leaving a new delivery courtyard, a narrow space along the north fortress wall to provide natural light to the restoration workshops and a small passage along the façade with the existing building. The rooftop forms a public esplanade with exceptional views of the fort, the old city of Calvi and the sea coast. Designed according to ambitious environmental objectives, the organisation of space and the envelope of massive textured concrete provides passive solutions that respect conservation requirements (limited impact, adaptable, low energy).
The pavilion-belvedere built on the existing esplanade provides access to the new esplanade and signals a new identity for the site.

competition images

Kaupunki

photographs

Marina Gadonneix

Exceeding expectations
Develop each project following a re-evaluation of both programme and anticipated results. Reply beyond the expectations of the programme. The principal architectural objective is to be found in the research of added, unexpected qualities.

Evolving surfaces
Architecture to be also conceived as terrains to be occupied in the future by still uncertain or improbable uses. Architecture as “reverse ruins” in an upturned archaeology that facilitates or suggests inevitable transformations. Therefore, when it might be tempting to be just spectacular, never hesitate to be simple and complex.

Comforts
Pay particular attention to all the complexity factors – functional, technical, regulatory, economic, aesthetic – and use them as a basis for future comforts. Distinguish structures, enclosures or equipment to consider temporal aspects of the project in a prospect of reversibility and diversity of uses.

Artificiality
Advocate and assert the profound artificiality, the non-naturalness of architecture. Conceive architecture in a grey ecology without naivety and in creative phase with the contradictions of our environment.

Aspirations
Associate production and research in resonance with an analysis of actual facts. Remain independent in thought to stimulate, guide and increase the pertinence of a project. Propose reality as an aspiration to do differently.

Founded in 2006, the office has developed its activity mainly in the field of cultural facilities with a strong interest and expertise in programmes related to the exhibition and preservation of all types of collections, from archaeology to contemporary art. Hugues Fontenas also teaches and conducts research on themes strongly connected to work in the office.