Mirto Ibos & Vitart

| Jean-Marc Ibos (*1957) | Myrto Vitart (*1955)

The Ibos & Vitart agency, which opened in 1989, is loca-ted in Paris. Jean-Marc Ibos and Myrto Vitart, who both graduated in the early 1980s, are part of that generation which came to the fore in France through the PAN competitions (Ibos was a prize winner in the 12th competition in 1981), and through the Cahiers de la Jeune Architecture (Ibos, in 1983). As founder members of Jean Nouvel & Associates in 1985, they took part in the agency's most salient and radical projects up until 1989 ("Nemausus" housing unit, 1987 ; the "Endless Tower", 1989 ; the Conference Centre in Tours, 1989…). Empowered by this experience combining design and construction, Ibos and Vitart then decided to join forces on the eve of the 1990s. Their architecture, which has retained a certain radical quality from their association with Nouvel, is firmly rooted in the real. It is neither utopian, nor make-believe, nor even "virtual", and it does not look for the material of its own experimentation elsewhere than in the objects that surround us. It is located almost exclusively in France, in a socio-economic, political and urban setting where Ibos and Vitart control the cogs and the precise challenges, and as such it always strives to be part of the situations out of which it emerges. This is why Ibos and Vitart each embark upon their projects by way of a very detailed analysis of the programmatic elements, economic limitations and particular issues peculiar to the site. But this systematic identification of the data of the real is not conducted by them by way of a contextualist quest for disappearance, and dilution of their architecture in the commonplace. On the contrary, it represents the tool for formulating and planning a project that will be at once relevant, effective and critical. For Ibos and Vitart, a radical stance in relation to the real, must be based on a complicity with the situation. This is where architecture starts : ahead of construction materials, ahead of the design and the drawing, too. It is the situation itself that they endea-vour, first of all, to work on and include in the architecture. This inclusion of all the basic data in the equation, which often adopts a chord of subversiveness and paradoxical upheaval, becomes the rule peculiar to each of their projects ; it establishes the clarity of their works and their extreme readability once finished. While Nemausus capsized the set of issues centred around public housing by favouring the size of the apartments, the projects put forward by Ibos and Vitart invariably show an evident and radical involvement and commitment. Their proposal for the Massena mixed housing development showed a preference for the suburban character of the site as opposed to the official neo-Haussmannesque doctrine. The project for the library and departmental archives in Marseilles reversed the horizontal split of the two plots by putting the two programmes vertically on top of one another. To subvert the ordinariness of this type of construction, without stepping out of the very tight economic framework of which it is part, the project for warehouses C40 and C41 at Gennevilliers was bedecked in two unexpected colours : gold and silver. "The real is only interesting", observed Myrto Vitart in the magazine IN/EX, "if you use it to come up with something that at once goes beyond it and becomes part of it.".

Notre-Dame de la Pentecôte
Paris, La Défense, concours, 1994

Building a church on the forecourt at La Défense in Paris means radically rethinking the traditional typology of the religious structure. The highrise office towers, at once monolithic and crystalline, and vying for height in a bristling disorder, straightaway proscribe any vertical monumentality for the church. In reconsidering this particular set of problems, Ibos and Vitart based their project on the idea of "elevation" and "presentation". By taking on the form of a pod, or shiny, opaque blob covered with copper, the church is accor-dingly presented to the beholder and the sky, suspended on four slender pillars. By playing on a dialectic between concavity and convexity, it promotes from without an innerness, apt for congregations or people simply quietly meditating. As a precious object raised from the ground, asserting its strangeness within a homogeneous setting, the church has an obvious access, which is easy, but no less meaningful for all that: at once progression, ascension, and alienation.

Palais des Beaux-Arts
Lille, France, 1992-97

In addition to the rearrangement of the existing permanent collections, what was involved in this project was to plan for the showing of new acquisitions, and design a temporary exhibition room and premises for conservation and the various departments of a museum thus renovated. The major concern of Ibos and Vitart was to re-emphasize the existing building, a "palais des beaux- arts" with majestic, neo-classical architecture, hitherto turned inward on to its central plan. Its perspectives, row arrangements and see-through features were singled out and reinstated, thus enabling the building to regain its principal architectural effects. The new extensions observe the same enlightened respect. The temporary exhibition room is buried, freeing up a forecourt behind, where there is a restaurant terrace. The offices and services are housed at the end of the forecourt in a blade-like building offering the reflection of its stippled curtain wall to the old palais, and projecting, ad infinitum, the symmetrical extension originally designed for it. Old and new are linked in this complex interface, between the silkscreened glass and the mural composition of gold and red monochromes.

équipements culturels de Cergy-le-Haut
Cergy-Pontoise, France, concours, 1999

This competition called for the construction of a complex of cultural programmes for Cergy-Pontoise, one of the "new towns" in the Paris area. This involved, on the one hand, a multimedia centre, a 100-seat auditorium, and music studios, and, on the other, a neighbourhood centre including conference rooms, facilities for various activities, and a multipurpose hall. In their project, Ibos and Vitart elected to deal with this heterogeneous programmatic complex as a fragmented unit, in the form of an open, unifying block. No programme is conveyed as such, through any distinct form. A single glazed curtain wall folds back onto the smooth façades, wrapping each of the three units. These preferably take up the edge of the block, leaving room for a public esplanade, the real heart of the project, at the centre. The only architectural modulation between the programmes has to do with the colour of the glass in the façades. Pale and transparent for the multimedia centre, blue for the neighbourhood centre, black for the studios, the glass takes on a mirror finish on the façades giving on to the inner square, representing the project's "solution of continuity".

Entrepôts C40 & C41
Port de gennevilliers, France, 2000-01

These warehouses, which also house offices, are located in the independent port of Gennevilliers, and resemble two basic volumes beside the river Seine. Placed on black concrete bases, their outer structure consists of simple metal cladding, like any old commonplace building of this sort. Ibos and Vitart turn their backs on any kind of technical and structural prowess, and focus on the architectural expressiveness of their shiny, compact warehouses, and their colour : gold for one, and silver for the other. By systematically applying its respective colour to all the parts of each building, their intention is to shift them from their normal functions, and distort their industrial ordinariness by an ambiguous interplay on a clearly displayed preciousness. By wrapping the roof at the standard railing height, the cladding hides both from prying eyes and thus reinforces the monolithic oddity of the two opaque boxes, which are top-lit.

Secteur Massena
(ZAC Seine Rive-Gauche)
Paris, France, concours, 1995

The challenge of this competition was the development of a Paris neighbourhood located on the large industrial wasteland at Tolbiac. Lying between the future Avenue de France and the river Seine, the Bibliothèque de France and the ringroad, this zone, with its ambiguous status, is in a somewhat awkward position between historic Paris, a little way off, and its immediate suburbs. Ibos and Vitart rejected both the logic of formed blocks, complying with the urban identity of Paris, and any "neo-Haussmannesque" annexation of this industrial and local crafts area. Instead, they sought, in their project, to understand, interpret and intensify the specific identity of the site. So it is rather with a discontinuous and suburban logic in mind that Ibos and Vitart drew up their plan. In this way they managed to incorporate within this composition of isolated objects the impressive grain silos, punctuating the site like "industrial castles", and otherwise doomed to demolition. A double alignment of buildings along the avenue offers a porous façade to the verdant field on which the buildings stand. An interplay of transversal footbridges lends structure to the project and makes full use of the different levels between the avenue and the river Seine.

Jean-Marc Ibos (1957) DPLG en 1982

Myrto Vitart (1955) DPLG en 1984

Création de l'Agence en 1989
Membres fondateurs de Jean Nouvel & Associés (1985/1989)
Equerre d'Argent 1997
Prix international Du Pont Benedictus 1998

Enseignement

Jean-Marc Ibos
2000/1998 – Ecole d'Architecture de Paris la Défense à Nanterre

Jean-Marc Ibos & Myrto Vitart
1995/1994 – Ecole Spéciale d'Architecture, Paris

Principaux projets et réalisations

2001 – "Entrepôts C40 et C41" Port de Gennevilliers (en cours) ; "Centre de Secours pour la Brigade des Sapeurs Pompiers de Paris" à Nanterre (en cours)
2000 – "Siège administratif de l'Agence Spatiale Italienne" à Rome (concours international) ; "Museum aan de Strom" à Anvers (concours international) ; "Extension du siège de l'Organisation Mondiale de la Propriété Intellectuelle" (O.M.P.I.) à Genève ; "Archives Départementales et Bibliothèque Départementale de Prêt" à Marseille (concours)
1999 – "Aménagement des Quais Rive Gauche de la Garonne" à Bordeaux, avec Ron Arad et Yann Kersalé (concours) ; "Equipements culturels à Cergy-le-haut" Cergy-Pontoise (concours) ; "Nouveau Centre de Communication de Renault S.A." Boulogne-Billancourt (concours) ; "Musée National de l'Automobile" Mulhouse (concours)
1997/1992 – "Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille" (réalisé)
1995 – "Secteur Massena" Zac Seine Rive Gauche, Paris (concours)
1994 – "Notre-Dame de la Pentecôte" Paris, la Défense (concours)
1989 – "Palais des Congrès de Tours" phase concours Jean-Marc Ibos et Jean Nouvel (réalisé)
1988/1987 – "Centre culturel de Saint Herblain" Myrto Vitart pour Jean Nouvel & Associés (réalisé) ; "Parking Atlantis" à Saint Herblain Myrto Vitart pour Jean Nouvel & Associés avec B. et C. Barto (réalisé)
1987/1986 – "Nemausus" 114 logements à Nîmes, Jean-Marc Ibos & Jean Nouvel (réalisé)

Principales publications de Jean-Marc Ibos & Myrto Vitart

1999 – "IN-EX Projects 01 extra-ordinary" éditions IN-EX Projects / Birkhaüser, Bâle, Berlin, Boston ; "Intelligent Glass Façades" 4th édition, éditions Birkhaüser ; "Architecture reborn, the conversion and reconstruction of old building" par Kenneth Powell, éditions Calman & King, Londres ; "Temps Denses 1998" par Richard Edwards, éditions Les Editions de l'Imprimeur ; "France : 99 Architectures en 1999" co-éditions la Maison d'Edition de l'Industrie et de l'Architecture à Pékin et Jean-Michel Place et Architecture Art Association à Paris ; "International Architecture Yearbook" (vol. 5) éditions The Images Publishing Group, Australie
1998 – "Recréation, 21 Architectures en France à l'aube du XXIème siècle" catalogue de l'exposition présentée à la VIIème Biennale d'Architecture de Buenos-Aires, éditions Ministère de la Culture et AFAA ; "Nouveaux Musées" éditions Telleri, Paris ; "Collection d'Architecture du Centre Georges Pompidou" éditions du Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris ; "Premises-Architecture & Design from France 1958-1998" catalogue de l'exposition, éditions The Solomon Guggenheim Museum
1997 – "La Consultation Massena" éditions d'Art Albert Skira
1996 – "Bloc, Le Monolithe Fracturé" catalogue de l'exposition présentée à la VIème Mostra d'Architecture de Venise, éditions HYX, Orléans ; "Conférences Paris d'Architectes" Les Mini P-A, éditions Pavillon de l'Arsenal, Paris