Located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône on an isthmus oriented towards the hills of the city, the old industrial port of Lyon was finally closed in 1995. In 2005 the project “La Confluence” got underway to turn around this now derelict area and replace the former warehouses and deposits with a new urban district of offices, housing, retail, leisure facilities and public spaces in a quarter once out of bounds to Lyon’s citizens.
Although the industries and port no longer exist, the materials and colours of the new buildings that have sprung up in their place make a point of referencing the harsh, gritty atmosphere that once reigned here. The new headquarters of venue-and-event management company GL Events, designed by Odile Decq, takes as its cue from the heavy metal structures and gantry cranes that dotted the quays. The whole building speaks of the world that once inhabited this place.
Two enormous cross braces supported by three exposed steel pylons form a structural frame able to bear a four-storey volume cantilevered over a parallelepiped entrance, and sustain full-height inner and outer glazed façades. The ground and mezzanine floors are occupied by functions catering for the general public and are directly accessible from the quayside along the river. The overhanging parallelepiped office block is skewed 86° with respect to its plinth. A major client requirement even at the competition stage was visual continuity between interiors and exteriors, the public and private sections of the building and throughout the offices. Visual permeability between inside and out has been achieved with full height glazing and by making a large aperture in the underside of the cantilevered volume to give views into the upper storey offices from the quay. Inside the building there are no blind partition walls, except for the lift and services block running up the building, with the result that there is...
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