A tough gig to play: Extending a Jean Prouvé office building by Sériès et Sériès.

Jean Prouvé's vision was to see how his material of choice, steel, could be used to produce cheaper, better, more elegant solutions to architectural and product design questions. Willing to follow his vision down whatever path it led him, without encumbrance from established aesthetic norms, Prouvé produced some truly innovative and original work. Sériès et Sériès, were the architects called upon to design an extension for an existing office building designed by Prouvé. As they say in the rock music world... not an easy gig to play. The architects for the extension, in a summary of the criteria they believed exemplified Prouvé's work, stated that; “ the same criteria of economy, flexibility, quality of light and material efficiency were explored as inspirations for design”. Ultimately this apparently came down to an exploration of the building skin. The key feature to emerge from the exploration was a sunscreen made from bright white resin panels. The arch form is designed to suggest or emulate of a pine forest canopy, such as the ones nearby, and was inspired by work from “Mathieu Mategot to the Fernand Pouillon arcade revisited. “ “The resulting design aims to stand complimentary to, not in contrast to, the existing building, emulating Prouvé’s process in order to marry style and economy.” Do you think they were successful?