Is Paris’s Olympics Architecture Right-Sized for our Times?

The $4.74 billion Paris 2024 plan advertises itself as “building less, better, and usefully.” It relies on existing structures, easily disassembled temporary pavilions, and urban interventions with an integral ongoing benefit to the metropolitan region. By building in a limited way tied to pre-existing urban development plans, the Paris Olympics committee is trying to avoid the multibillion-dollar debt trap hosting the games has incurred on cities like Beijing ($52.7B), Sochi ($59.7B), and Tokyo ($35B). Costs have reportedly climbed to at least $9.66 billion as of April, but that figure still counts as thrifty compared to other recent games. 

The overhauled building services of the $500 million Grand Palais project, for instance, radically updates a venue up-to-now mostly used for trade shows and fashion week events, and only in good seasonal weather. After the renovation, it’s becoming a year-round contemporary cultural center with planned exhibitions of Chiharu Shiota, Niki de Saint Phalle, Anthony Gourmley, Francis Alÿs, and Nan Goldin, along with trade shows, fashion events, and popular spectacles like tightrope walking. “We’re not making the restoration just to make the restauration of historical monuments,” says François Chatillon, a specialist in sensitive historic rehabilitation projects. “We are making the restoration for people to use it. Not only to make something beautiful but to increase capacity. Three thousand people came into the Palais before; tomorrow it will be 9,000 people.”

To add functionality to the Grand Palais, Chatillon Architects inserted a radiant-heated-and-cooled floor keeping the grandiose structure comfortable within five-to-seven feet above ground level. They discreetly hid the pipes, pumps, and wiring in a pink-pigmented concrete floor reminiscent of the earthy terrain that once accommodated equestrian transport. Interstitial glass walls between sections of the palace allow for simultaneous cultural-and-event programming while steadfastly maintaining openness and visibility. The exquisitely restored bronze-colored Art Nouveau staircase and new thermal windows express a devotion to the turn-of-the-19th-century designs of Henri Deglane, Albert Louvet, Albert Thomas, and Charles Girault with a contemporary frisson.

“What I’m interested in is how can I refurbish or restore something to get people the same shock that they had before, but not with the same tools,” says Chatillon. “I have to invent other tools to be able to get this shock of this architecture. Even when I go to Pompei, what is shocking me is the modernity of what they have been able to do. Not because it’s ancient: ‘Wow, they could do that with their tools? This is incredible.’”

The Olympic and Paralympic Village features dozens of independently designed apartment buildings by preeminent French firms like Brennac Gonzalez, Atelier Martel, Chaix et Morel, uapS, and Barrault Pressacco with landscapes by Atelier Georges, Wagon Landscaping, and Taktyk. The neighborhood will temporarily shelter 15,000 athletes during the summer games then be transferred to a company managing a mixture of market-rate and social housing, and commercial offices. It’s a purpose-built mixed-use neighborhood planned and realized by Une Fabrique de la Ville and Michel Guthmann Architecture & Urbanism, integrally linked to the Carrefour Pleyel stop of the 13 Metro line. 

Most of the rest of the facilities are temporary or tied to updates of existing buildings: The main venue for the 2024 Olympics will be the Stade de France, which has been updated to run on Paris’s relatively clean energy supply rather than the diesel generators it relied on for past mega-events. When Paris hosted the 1924 Olympics, the main venue was the 19th-century Stade du Matin in the commune of Colombes. Now, at the hands of Kansas City–based firm Populous, that historic stadium—renamed the Yves-du-Manoir—has been upgraded and will host field hockey events. Further afield, the Chateau de Versailles went through two years of work to receive 16,000 spectators for equestrian events, with temporary pavilions designed for deconstruction after the Olympics. Archery and para archery and athletics will take place in the garden outside the 1687 Hôtel des Invalides.

The “Grand Palais Éphèmère,” designed by architect and planner Jean-Michel Wilmotte at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, will host beach volleyball and blind football. Wilmotte employed renewable materials like laminated wood for the structure and lightweight ETFE for cladding. Skateboarding, 3X3 basketball, BMX freestyle, and breaking will be staged in an open-air “urban park” along the Place de la Concorde. Chattilon also upgraded the Grand Nef, a formerly shuttered 1971 sports stadium on Île-Saint-Denis, into a training facility for fencers. It will later become a reactivated sports facility for the town of Saint-Ouen.

Petulance is a bit of a sport of its own in Paris, of course, and for all the Olympics venues’ environmental appointments and services, Parisians are pretty unified in their non-embrace. Countless vow to leave the city to avoid the crowds. The Metro is raising prices from €2.15 to €4 for the occasion, adding extra punishment for those who remain. But for Saint-Denis, Saint-Ouen, and other outlying towns, Paris 2024 may be remembered for bringing a new sense of grace and connection to their residents’ everyday life.

Would you like to comment on this article? Send your thoughts to: [email protected]

• Cultural

• adaptive reuse
• Chatillon Architects
• Climate Adaptation
• History
• Olympics
• Paris
• Paris 2024
• Populous
• Preservation
• Real Estate and Investment
• Stephen Zacks