Agence
Francis Soler
(F)
Francis Soler (1949)
(F)
Francis Soler (1949)
Francis
Soler is a prolific architect, bubbling over with ideas, and member of the
generation that emerged amid the euphoria of those spectacular competitions
of the 1980s. As winner of the Quai Branly International Conference Centre
in 1990, he then embarked on a more mature and complex phase of his work,
based on that emblematic but never completed project. His recent projects,
such as the Millau viaduct, the multipurpose high school (Lycée polyvalent)
in Noumea (New Caledonia), and the Kéroman Base conversion at Lorient
(Brittany) are aimed at exploring a poetic dimension of architecture, somewhere
beyond its contemporary contradictions. Most of all, Soler is keen to sidestep
the twofold temptation of style and foundation. In his book, architecture
must remain fictional, not to say dreamlike; it must be "as light as
imagery". This lightness doesn't merely refer to an aesthetic but also
to architecture's ability to be available to human vagaries, urban changes,
the complexity of the landscape, and the moveable rules and regulations
of the environment. To borrow his own words: "And if there are no more
real rules, there must nevertheless be a minimum of signs to follow, those
marks of an original geography."