Context: the ZAC Paris Rive Gauche
It was in 1873 that the two french engineers and industrials, Panhard et Levassor opened in this former industrial and railway area, the first automobile by oil plant in the world. Les Grands Moulins de Paris were built between 1917 and 1921 by Georges Wybo, architect of the stores Printemps Haussmann. In 1950, a Hall for flour made of concrete, built by architect Denis Honneger, a student of Auguste Perret, is attached to the mill to store the flour before the packing. The whole is still in 1996, the largest mill in the world.
In 2007, the area became what is called the ZAC Paris Rive Gauche whose construction was entrusted to the architect Christian de Portzamparc . He proposed the concept of open islands, is to say, a mesh of buildings whose facades were to be ’sculpted’ by different architects, featuring a garden and a ‘university city’ which was inserted into the former industrial buildings: the Grands Moulins de Paris and Hall
Farines respectively restored by architects Riccioti Rudy and Nicolas Michelin. The University Paris 7 – Denis Diderot had to wait ten years before moving to the site of Jussieu.
The other buildings of the district were designed, among others, by Frédéric Borel (who also conceived the School of Architecture Paris Val de Seine), Beckmann N’Thépé, Jean Guervilly, X-TU … The gardens surrounding the 3 Grands Moulins were made by the agency Ah Ah Landscape.
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