Olympic Landmark
Client: Ville de Paris / French Olympic Committee
Typology: culture
Year: 2004
Place: Paris, France
International architectural competition
A Device for Seeing Paris
What does it mean to see and to be seen in a contemporary metropolis? The idea behind the landmark designed for the Paris Olympics is that seeing a contemporary city increasingly means looking through things—accessing information about its past and its future, being transported beyond time and space.
This landmark was conceived as a machine for seeing, imagined as a large folded, double‑sided surface that—like Alice’s mirror—transfers different visions at different moments: the past, the present, and the future. Rather than taking visitors upward to look out over Paris, we chose to give them a way to access information about the site and, more broadly, about the city itself.
The first mode of seeing is provided by the landmark’s “skin,” a cladding made of polished stainless‑steel scales. In its lower portion, it reflects the surrounding environment, while in the upper portion—thanks to the different angling of the plates—it becomes more permeable, projecting symbolic images of Olympic sports into the distance and echoing what happens inside. Along the upper edge of the structure, a series of lamps fitted with blue filters ensures that the landmark remains visible from afar both day and night, becoming a recognizable sign within the city.
The interior cladding serves as a support for multiple layers of projected imagery. In the lower portion, the surface displays a real‑time view of the area, captured from a height of 21 meters by a set of cameras. In the middle portion, images recounting the history of Batignolles alternate with visuals illustrating the Olympic Games of 1908 and 1924. In the upper portion, a presentation of the Olympic concept is projected.
