Jean Nouvel

A number of museums and architectural centres have presented retrospectives of his work.

Jean Nouvel studied at Beaux-Arts de Paris. Training under Claude Parent and Paul Virilio is recorded. Hala Wardé is recorded as having studied under Jean Nouvel. The recorded working language is French. Places of work recorded in the authority are Paris. Works named in the authority record are Quartier 207, Tour bleue, Cologne Tower, Torre Glòries, Nouvel Building and Louvre Abu Dhabi. Work by Jean Nouvel is recorded in the collections of Design Museum Gent, Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Kunstmuseum Den Haag. Distinctions recorded are Knight of the National Order of Merit, Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres, Pritzker Architecture Prize and Royal Gold Medal.

Nouvel was born on 12 August 1945 in Fumel, France. He is the son of Renée and Roger Nouvel, who were teachers. When his father became the county's chief school superintendent, his family moved often. His parents encouraged Nouvel to study mathematics and language but when he was 16 years old he was captivated by art when a teacher taught him drawing. Although he later said he thought that his parents were guiding him to pursue a career in education or engineering, the family reached a compromise: he could study architecture, which they thought was less risky, as a profession, than art. When Nouvel failed an entrance examination at the École des Beaux-Arts of Bordeaux, he moved to Paris, where he won first prize in a national competition to attend the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts. From 1967 to 1970, he earned his income as an assistant to architects Claude Parent and Paul Virilio, who, after only one year, made him a project manager in charge of building a large apartment complex. Nouvel and the filmmaker Odile Fillion have two sons: Bertrand, a post-doctorate computer scientist working at Mindstorm Multitouch in London, and Pierre, a theater producer and designer at his company, Factoid. With his second wife, Catherine Richard, Nouvel has a daughter, Sarah. In 2008, He was living with Mia Hägg, a Swedish architect whose practice, Habiter Autrement (HA), is based in Paris. His third wife, Lida Guan, is a Chinese architect who worked with Nouvel.

In its biographical sketch of Nouvel, the Pritzker site quotes Bill Lacy's One Hundred Contemporary Architects: "Since the beginning of his architectural career in the 1970s, [Nouvel] has broken the aesthetic of modernism and post-modernism to create a stylistic language all his own. He places enormous importance on designing a building harmonious with its surroundings." "I am often presented as an architect of ‘French high tech,’" Nouvel said, in a talk he gave in Milan in April 1995. "I would like to begin by explaining what I mean by the term modernity: Modernity is alive, it is not some historical movement that was interrupted a few decades ago. Modernity is making the best use of our memory and moving ahead as fast as we can in terms of development." Writing in The Architectural Review, Andrew Ayers quoted Nouvel's 1980 aperçu, "The future of architecture is no longer architectural," by which the architect meant that "rather than remaining a closed discipline, as it seemed to be in the technocratic France of the time, ‘architecture needed to seek its sources in the culture of today, in other disciplines’, and fully embrace the nature of the society of which it was the ultimate expression." Noting cinema's influence on Nouvel as well as the architect's affinity for postmodern philosophy, he added, "At its best, when [Nouvel] doesn’t overdo it, his is an approach that can enchant with its theatrical blurring of boundaries, its poetic feeling for atmosphere and its light-hearted play with signs and signifiers: the winking mechanical mashrabiyas of the Institut du Monde Arabe, the tree-filled mise en abyme of the crystalline Fondation Cartier, or the pluie de lumière that filters through the intricate metal-mesh dome of the Louvre Abu Dhabi." "At his boldest, Nouvel is at the edge of what" the postmodern philosopher and media theorist Jean Baudrillard "called 'the sparkle and violence of American cities,'" wrote Amelia Stein, in The Guardian. "Both critics and admirers have commented that he eschews a formal language and, in a 2008 profile, the New York Times wrote that Nouvel’s work lacks even a 'readily apparent common sensibility.' 'They’re very right to say that,' Nouvel says, with quiet intensity, then a smile. 'I’m very proud of that. I’m not a painter or a writer; I don’t work in my room, I work in different cities with different people. I’m more akin to a movie-maker who makes movies on completely different subjects. To reduce style to the adoption of a formal language is such a short-sighted vision that if anybody is reproaching me for this, I would reproach their reproach.'”

Nouvel has designed a number of notable buildings across the world, the most significant of which are listed below. As part of the announcement of Nouvel's Pritzker Prize, the Hyatt Foundation, which awards the prize, published a full illustrated list of Nouvel's architectural work, including projects which were never built, projects in construction, and designs for which construction has yet to start. In 2001, the director Beat Kuert filmed a documentary about five of Nouvel's projects, titled Jean Nouvel.

1987 – Nemausus 1 (Housing, 114 apartments), Nîmes, France 1987 – Arab World Institute (together with Architecture-Studio), Paris, France 1994 – Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain (Office / Cultural), Paris, France 1995 – Euralille, (Retail / Office / Housing), Lille, France 2000 – Culture and Convention Center (Performance Space / Conference Hall / Museum / Restaurant), Lucerne, Switzerland 2000 – Palais de Justice, Nantes, France 2001 – Golden Angel (Zlatý Anděl), Prague, Czech Republic 2002 – Monolith of Expo.02, Murten, Switzerland 2004 – Torre Agbar (Office), Barcelona, Spain 2004 – Museum Two, Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea 2005 – Reina Sofía Museum expansion, Madrid, Spain 2006 – Musée du quai Branly, Paris, France 2006 – Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis, MN, USA 2009 – Copenhagen Concert Hall, Copenhagen, Denmark 2010 – 100 Eleventh Avenue, Manhattan, NY, USA. 2010 – Serpentine Gallery temporary pavilion, London 2010 – One New Change, London 2011 – Tower 25 in Nicosia 2012 – Doha Tower skyscraper, Doha, Qatar 2012 – City Hall, Montpellier. 2015 – Philharmonie de Paris, Paris 2015 – Tour Bleue, Charleroi 2016 – Le Nouvel Residences, Kuala Lumpur 2017 – Louvre Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates 2018 – La Marseillaise, Marseille, France 2019 – National Museum of Qatar, Doha, Qatar 2019 – 53W53, Manhattan, NY, USA 2020 – Stelios Ioannou Learning Resource Center project for the University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus 2022 – Cidade Matarazzo Rosewood Hotel, São Paulo, Brazil

The Sharaan resort in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to be carved into a sandstone hill in the AlUla desert. The Central Park redevelopment plan in Sydney will see 11 new buildings in partnership with architects such as Norman Foster to recreate an abandoned brewery occupying almost four inner-city blocks. Nouvel's 120-meter One Central Park is his first project in Australia, and will feature a cantilevered mirror hanging over the central square off of the side of the building.

Nouvel is one of the architects involved in the designing of the new Slussen in Stockholm. In February 2008, Nouvel agreed to design a 45-story luxury condo tower in upscale Century City section of Los Angeles. The tower will be of modern design—it is designed to maximize views of the Los Angeles Country Club from the units and is opposed by both homeowners associations in Beverly Hills for the shadows it will cast on many small homes and its next door neighbor, Beverly Hills High School.

1989 – The Tour Sans Fins (Office/High-Rise) at La Défense, France, was never realized. Nouvel's winning design, proposed as Europe's tallest building in 1989, was to change ground up from granite, followed by aluminum, stainless steel and finally glass—"increasingly diaphanous before disappearing into the sky". 2003 – The Carnegie Science Center addition by Nouvel in Pittsburgh was never realized. Nouvel's winning design ended up being too expensive and Nouvel's contract was terminated by the Carnegie Science Center, citing a "dramatic difference between the budget for the project and the estimated cost." On Tuesday 27 May 2008 Nouvel's design won the contest for the upcoming Tour Signal in La Défense.

Honorary degrees from the University of Buenos Aires (1983), the Royal College of Art, London (2002) and the University of Naples (2002). Honorary fellow of the American Institute of Architects (1993) and of the Royal Institute of British Architects (1995). In 1997, Nouvel was named Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He first joined the order in 1983. He is also Chevalier de la légion d'honneur. 2005 – Wolf Prize in Arts 2008 – Pritzker Prize

1989 Aga Khan Award for Architecture for the Institut du Monde Arabe. In 1987, the building also won the Équerre d'Argent awarded yearly to the best building in France. 2010 Wallpaper* Magazine Design Award, Best new public house category for Copenhagen Concert Hall

2001 – Centre Pompidou, Paris 2005 – Louisiana Museum of Modern Art

Nouvel was awarded the Pritzker Prize, architecture's highest honour, in 2008, for his work on more than 200 projects, among them, in the words of The New York Times, the "exotically louvered" Arab World Institute, the bullet-shaped and "candy-colored" Torre Agbar in Barcelona, the "muscular" Guthrie Theater with its cantilevered bridge in Minneapolis, and in Paris, the "defiant, mysterious, and wildly eccentric" Musée du quai Branly (2006) and the Philharmonie de Paris (a "trip into the unknown" c. 2012). Pritzker points to several more major works: in Europe, the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art (1994), the Culture and Convention Center in Lucerne (2000), the Opéra Nouvel in Lyon (1993), Expo 2002 in Switzerland and, under construction, the Copenhagen Concert Hall and the courthouse in Nantes (2000); as well as two tall towers in planning in North America, Tour Verre in New York City and a cancelled condominium tower in Los Angeles. In its citation, the jury of the Pritzker prize noted: Of the many phrases that might be used to describe the career of architect Jean Nouvel, foremost are those that emphasize his courageous pursuit of new ideas and his challenge of accepted norms in order to stretch the boundaries of the field. [...] The jury acknowledged the 'persistence, imagination, exuberance, and, above all, an insatiable urge for creative experimentation' as qualities abundant in Nouvel's work.

Nouvel and the buildings which he designed have received a number of distinctions during his career, the most prestigious of which are listed below.