Notre-Dame de Paris : Redesigning the Parvis | Oct 24, 2023

Please join this fascinating conversation between 2022 Villa Albertine residents Susanne Eliasson and Anthony Jammes as they unveil the new landscape and entrance surrounding the beloved medieval cathedral in the heart of Paris. They have had the honor and responsibility of being entrusted with the transformation of Notre Dame’s parvis, and in particular its underfloor. No easy feat for a historic site welcoming over 20 million visitors a year! They’ll be sharing some exclusive images and secrets with us. This project is a collaboration between the Bureau Bas Smets, the GRAU collective of urban architects, Neuville Gayet architectes at Ingerop and the Ville de Paris.

About the guests:

Susanne Eliasson and Anthony Jammes are urban development architects, founders of the GRAU agency, and winners of the 2016 Palmarès des jeunes urbanistes. GRAU (short for “Good Reasons to Afford Urbanism”) operates in the space between architecture and urban planning. Boasting over ten years’ experience in France and Europe, and through a range of urban renewal and densification projects in existing areas, it has expertise in housing-related issues. Susanne teaches in Düsseldorf; Anthony teaches in Versailles.

In their work, the architects-urbanists of Collectif GRAU are exploring the ways in which individuals have made the city a place to call home, where the development of collective relationships is not standing in the way of feeling safe or intimate. They actually draw their inspiration in how our homes are being structured, mirroring the building of interconnexions in our societies. They also focus on the building of “garden cities”, on how our social structures can fit in the environment with which we are endowed by nature. The redesign of the new Parvis de Notre-Dame has been thought in this perspective, driven by the will to respect and honor the features of the pre-existing site.