June 11, 2004

	© Images Courtesy Ateliers Jean Nouvele

Jean Nouvel beat off finalists MVRDV and Daniel Libeskind in an open competition to build Le Havre's new Marine Center and swimming pool complex. The $39 million project is part of a large-scale investment scheme to turn the city's port into a cultural, leisure and shopping quarter.

The surrounding industrial aesthetic of the port influenced Nouvel’s design, which includes a 394-foot-high glass and steel tower. Two cantilevered platforms will house exhibitions on the economic and industrial importance of ports and the relationship between ports, coastal environments and the oceans. On approval from the city's authorities, French lighting designer Yann Kersalé will work with Nouvel to illuminate the tower. And while Nouvel drew inspiration "directly from the machinery in the port," said project architect Mirco Tardio, his buildings overall will be "more polished” and “adapted to the [cultural and leisure] program". Engineering firms SERO, based in Le Havre, and ARUP in the UK will be involved in the project. The adjacent 63,507-square-foot swimming pool complex will house two heated pools – one outdoor and Olympic in size – a water therapy center and saunas. Unlike the transparent tower, the pool complex will be built in concrete, its façade pierced with random openings. The provisional completion dates for the pool complex and the Marine Center are the end of 2006 and the end of 2007 respectively.

Robert Such

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