Paul Andreu (1938-2018) is one of the key figures in the architecture of the second half of the 20th century, having designed the resolutely innovative clean lines of Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport (1967-1974).

"Every time I think of a project, I don't create a box to organize movement, but I design the walls according to the movement people will make inside," asserted this champion of the curved line.

In addition to the concrete hulls and fascinating windings of airport terminals that he would become a specialist in, from Jakarta to Dubai and Shanghai, the great curved glass roof of the Beijing Opera House - a gigantic ellipsoidal dome of titanium and glass placed on the water in 2008 -, or the glass sphere that seems to float on the ocean that forms Osaka's fantastic Maritime Museum, to name but two of his masterpieces, attest to this propensity for purity and undulating forms.

Coupled with a great economy of materials, this quest for pure line drawn by the perfect geometry of the circle makes Paul Andreu a worthy heir not only to the great architects of Antiquity and the Renaissance, but also to another master of curves and elasticity to whom he aspired: the great Finnish architect and designer Alvar Aalto. A soft, flowing line, inducing "ever-changing perspectives", to be discovered in the retrospective devoted by the Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine in Paris to the architect who was also a painter and writer.

" PAUL ANDREU. L'ARCHITECTURE EST UN ART "
CITÉ DE L'ARCHITECTURE ET DU PATRIMOINE
1, PLACE DU TROCADÉRO, PARIS 16E
JUSQUAU AU 2 JUIN 2024
CITEDELARCHITECTURE.FR
Aérogare 1 de Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle (1967-1974), from the main access road. Photographic print, n.d.
Archives du Groupe ADP © ADP/Paul Andreu - Adagp, Paris 2024
Osaka Maritime Museum, known as the "Sea Sphere", Japan (1992-2000). Photograph, n.d.