II. Architecture of the 21st century.

        
        However, this museum is not a simple modern cultural project. It is also a museum with an amazing architecture, which is completely new in the landscape of the museums of the Nord-pas-de-Calais.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5rLHNcs190)

The SANAA's project in 3D...

1)  The interaction with the site.

The organization of the building.

The Japanese Agency SANAA’s work begins with an appreciation of the site and the integration of its different components : its history, its topography, its urban environment, its climate, its light and its vegetation, all elements that help architects writing a scenario considering particularities of the site.

For this site, architects have fragmented the project in five main buildings of different shapes. Their disposal meets the route of the old "horsemen", on which mining convoys were routed. Thus deployed program focuses on horizontal constructions marrying perfectly with the surrounding frame consisting of old low miners houses. These movements, which emphasize the relief, establish, with the ground, more proximity, further enhanced by the light curves of the edges of the different blocks. These combination options create a building more natural and less artificial.

From a height of six metres, five buildings are finally connected to offer to visitors a pleasant continuity. The building is in total harmony with its plant environment according to Catherine Mosbach.

Extract from Beaux-arts éditions :

«  C’était une opportunité très rare de pouvoir travailler à une telle échelle, celle de 20 hectares de terrain. Or le projet n’est ni celui d’un parc urbain, ni celui d’un jardin de musée. Tout simplement parce que nous avons fait en sorte qu’il n’existe pas de limite entre architecture et paysage. L’architecture de SANAA joue sur une idée de transparence et de réflexion avec le paysage, dans son dispositif comme par le choix de façades en aluminium et verre. Le parc joue, pour sa part, sur une ambiguïté entre son caractère minéral et végétal. Il est donc un intermédiaire entre un site naturel et un site tenu par la main de l’homme » (Catherine Mosbach in Beaux-arts éditions, a special publication about Louvre-Lens, in December 2012).

The Glass pavilion.

The fully transparent glass pavilion is completely opened onto the park of the museum, with a perspective on the mythical Stadium of Lens and the twin dumps of Loos-en-Gohelle. The two mounds that are reminiscent of the mining past arise, two contemporary sculptures magnified by the surrounding landscape. Through this architecture of glass, it's with a new look that the visitor discovers on a natural heritage with an unexpected aesthetic.

It is a new museum that might be described as contemporary, by its architectural themes, and its unexpected structure, that is accessible to the public. Everything respect the urban environment and the natural site, so that the museum is not imposed but becomes an harmonious creation.

2) A museum on the move.

     The museum, in addition to play with the historical and natural topic, is playing with the movement and the atmospheric changes that surround the building. This is its originality and its interest.

Indeed, the museum becomes a non-static building in permanent movement owing to its formal variations and the arrangement of rooms. The organization of the museum gives to visitors a unique route. The Louvre-Lens is as a vast area of experiences : you can be a passionate admirer of masterpieces exposed, or simply a walker in the Park, for example.

A part of the entrance hall.

This desire to create a dynamic architecture is also based on the choice of materials. The glass and aluminium used here generate a range of sensations. Crystalline transparency of the facades distorts reflections of the walls of anodized aluminium. Each space lives to the rhythm of climate variability and changes thanks to the light. The project by SANAA is also to present different works with natural light, in a direct relationship with the brightness of the sky. It is not only an architectural choice but also a new look in scenography and its influence on masterpieces presentation.

Finally, we can mention the presence of videos on the glass walls that seem to be constantly in motion, as to create a presence in walls that would permit us to see the piece and not one elsewhere that represent these screenings.

In the end, the movement is a major element of the architectural project of two Japaneses, but this is not a movement invented. It is rather an ephemeral movement that the nature produces on the world. It is the contemporary face of this building.

3) Minimalism and transparency.

        To conclude this section on the architecture, this museum remains a project where minimalism is essential. You can realize that by simply walking for a few minutes in the Entrance hall and the Time gallery.

The ground floor.

This simple aesthetic developed by the Japanese duo is located at the crossroads between quest for the minimalism (transparency, clean lines) and looking for a new expressionism of the architecture, summoning several meanings of the visitor, such as the sight and touch. With the Louvre-Lens, it is a personal experience with the senses of architecture - a choice that would not deny Mies van der Rohe with his famous quotation of modernist "Less is more". 

Despite this choice, we still note the presence of many details as we have seen in the video of the prologue. The roof is very worked, as well as the of the beams supporting the building. Everything has been carefully thought and calculated. The rooms follow this directive.