Jean-Paul Viguier


Jean-Paul Viguier is a French architect. He is considered one of the world's leading architects and one of the few French ones to work extensively outside of Europe.

Early works

Graduated from the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in 1970, Jean-Paul Viguier, with Jean Bossu and Georges-Henri Pingusson, founded the teaching unit n°5. 3 years later, he received a "master of city planning in urban design" at the Harvard Graduate School of Design from Harvard University, and, as he came back in France, he hosted a section of urban architecture in the journal Urbanisme. From 1975-1992, projects were carried out in association with Jean-François Jodry. In 1981, he won the "first prize of the jury" in the competition for the Opera Bastille and then, in 1983, the "first tie price" for the project head Defense. In 1986, he won alongside Alain Provost, Patrick Berger and Gilles Clément, the competition for the construction of the Parc André-Citroën in Paris, whose creation will last 6 years soon after they won the Seville Expo’92 contest for the .
In 1988, he designed The Atrium : headquarters of the Caisse des Depots et Consignations in Boulogne-Billancourt. In 1990, he won the competition organized by the Public Establishment for the development of the Defence area for the construction of the Heart defense complex at the Esso headquarters location. Then he realized the headquarters of France Télévisions in Paris, as well as many others, such as Alstom in Saint-Ouen and AstraZeneca and Bristol-Myers Squibb in Rueil-Malmaison.

Jean-Paul Viguier et Associés practice

The firm has designed housing, cultural, office, and urban-development projects.
In the area of housing, with achievements in Paris, Créteil, Asnieres-sur-Seine, Clichy and recently in the 15th district of the capital, rue de la Convention.In the cultural sector, the firm designed the Médiathèque in Reims and led the restructuring of the of Toulouse. The firm also designed urban facilities such as the layout of the site of the Pont du Gard and built an archaeological museum on the same site in 2000.
The firm has also designed office buildings, including Angle in Boulogne-Billancourt, the headquarters of L'Équipe, IBM Europe in Bois-Colombes, Prisma Presse in Gennevilliers, and Cœur Méditerranée in Marseille. Finally, the is located in La Défense.
The firm’s international work includes the and planning projects in Malaysia. In spring 2008, in Budapest central square, the Vorosmarty Plaza Project was opened to the public: a mixed-use building with a glass façade. In June 2008, the in San Antonio, the first American modern art museum built by a French architect, was inaugurated. The agency also worked in Morocco at the construction of the headquarters of Morocco Telecom in Rabat in 2009.
According to the firm’s website: “The agency has thus shown an ability to build in various parts of the world and strives to bring to its projects the best possible responses to the relationship between buildings and their environment.”

Awards and personal titles

Jean-Paul Viguier was awarded the grand prize of the Cities Monitor for the Parc André-Citroën, got a mention for the prix de l’equerre d’Argent of Architecture for his industrial hotel activity building rue d ' Aubervilliers in Paris19th, and the Architectural Record-Business Week Award in New York for the head office of Astra Pharmaceutical Headquarters in Rueil-Malmaison. The Sofitel Chicago Water Tower has received "the best building since ten years award" in 2003 by the AIA Chicago; This building is listed among the "150 favorite buildings of America" by the American Institute of Architects, and got the MIPIM Award in 2005. The Pont du Gard has the ”Grand site de France " label.
He has been a member of the Académie d’architecture since 1993 and served as its president from 1999 to 2002. He is also a founding member of AFEX. He was appointed "honorary Fellow" of the AIA in 2001 and Honorary Professor of Tongji University in Shanghai, China.
Several projects by the firm have received environmental certifications such as BREEAM, BBC, HQE.

Notable works

For further information about the projects go to the