All photographs © Roland Halbe 

Kengo Kuma and Associates revealed new visuals of Conservatory of Music and Auditorium,Aix en Provence, located in France and completed in 2013.

The project is a complex of the music conservatory, its concert hall and various other facilities.There is a big difference in elevation within the site, and its neighboring land is also diverse.To solve such complexity, we chose aluminum as a single material for each façade, to be folded in part according to the face.

By adding the work of “folding” to the thin aluminum panel, each façade is given subtle shading. The main element of the façade here, therefore, is light and shadow, instead of the aluminum.Kengo Kuma and Associates were inspired for this idea by Paul Cézanne, the great artist from this region, and Japanese art of Origami.

Folding also became useful in protecting the opening from the sunlight, and controlling the range of view from the opening.Kengo Kuma and Associates also received an interesting remark that this façade evokes a musical score, the protagonist of conservatory.

Folding is also applied to the concert hall.An asymmetrical interior was generated as its result, and helped to make a resonance with colorful, free-spirited music by Darius Milhaud, again a composer of Aix-en-Provence whose name is crowned on the conservatory.

Project Facts

Project name:Aix en Provence, France
Date:2013
Service:Conservatory of Music and Auditorium
Size:8,839 m2

> via Kengo Kuma and Associates