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Paris-based Ibos-Vitart Architects win Commercial Benedictus Award for renovation of fine arts museum

Le Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille: the extension façade, detail

Paris-based Ibos-Vitart Architects has won the 1998 DuPont Commercial Benedictus Award for its renovation of the Fine Arts Museum (Palais des Beaux-Arts) in Lille, France. The architects used the transparency, reflection, durability and structural strength of laminated glass both for a new extension and for the museography within the existing building.

The museum is literally projected outside of its existing setting by way of a thin, blade-like wall of laminated glass that restitutes the reading of the intended volume of the original project, never realized, by architects Berard and Delmas in 1892. Through this restitution, the exterior and interior spaces of the museum are integrated.

The surface of this structure is composed of a series of superimposed planes. The first is of clear glass that reflects an impressionistic image of the Palais and which serves as an interface between the old and the new. Beyond that surface are gold monochromes on a red background that appear all along the vista.

The addition is linked above ground to the original building by an open, laminated glass terrace of 720 M² and below ground by a gallery covered by a glass ceiling. The terrace is composed of large glass panels (5,450mm x 1,900mm) supported by steel beams and is bordered by a peripheral water path, 61cm wide. The terrace and the water path are flush with the level of the polished concrete. The resulting backdrop reflects old and new simultaneously.

An "enriching dialogue" between old and new

The glazed terrace structure with the existing building in the background

The 1998 Benedictus judging panel, composed of Sara Topelson de Grinberg of Grinberg & Topelson Architects, Mexico (President of UIA), Richard Hough of Ove Arup & Partners, Sydney and Rafael Vinoly of New York, said: "Technically, (the renovation) is elegantly detailed. The reflected glass wall and the horizontal glass surface in the courtyard have environmental controls that made sense to us. The project reflects respect for the old and a transition to the new. It is a new building in a city center that creates an interesting and enriching dialogue with existing buildings. It possesses a poetic architectural spirit that is unique."