Jean Nouvel: Urban planning lacks vision
Urban planning across the globe is marred by “a lack of future vision”, according to French architect Jean Nouvel .
Ahead of the launch of his Rosewood hotel design next year, part of the Cidade Matarazzo regeneration scheme in São Paolo, Brazil, the Pritzker prize-winning architect said that a focus on zoning and functionality has shifted attention from perspective and design in cities around the world.
Nouvel, known for work including One New Change in London, EC4, and Doha’s Doha Tower, said: “It is very important we create conscious cities that respond to changing needs.
Urban planning across the globe is marred by “a lack of future vision”, according to French architect Jean Nouvel .
Ahead of the launch of his Rosewood hotel design next year, part of the Cidade Matarazzo regeneration scheme in São Paolo, Brazil, the Pritzker prize-winning architect said that a focus on zoning and functionality has shifted attention from perspective and design in cities around the world.
Nouvel, known for work including One New Change in London, EC4, and Doha’s Doha Tower, said: “It is very important we create conscious cities that respond to changing needs.
“We need to consider more what we need to push for in the future and what we might need to integrate, whether that’s history, the soul of a city or infrastructure.
“At the moment urban planning is too functional. Take American cities,” he said, “they are built on a frame and then that’s it, that’s how they are left.”
Nouvel’s current scheme – the six-star Rosewood hotel building which stands at 91m high – will form the central focus of Groupe Allard’s 7-acre Cidade Matarazzo project. It wlll comprise 151 bedrooms and 122 flats, with interiors by Philippe Starck.
Formerly the site of a heritage-listed hospital, the hotel tower (pictured) will be clad in timber with a nature-focused design and will include trees on the roof to complement the surrounding parkland.
Nouvel said: “This is what I mean about designing for the future and for a city. Everything I do is different because it has to match the context of where the project is. This project in Brazil is very different to what I did in London, where you are working just by St Paul’s Cathedral.
He added: “São Paolo deserves a better position on the world stage because it is an important, historical city. But it is the result of a violent past and it is a hard city as a result. But it also has a lot of energy and that will transform São Paolo and this is why the city needs to have an idea about how it is positioning for the future.”
Alexandre Allard, founder of Groupe Allard and the man developing Cidade Matarazzo, added: “São Paolo has a creative energy bubble which is ready to burst. This project will create an internationally recognised brand here which we think will be the catalyst.”
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