Paris Opera Ballet School

In 1983, the French Culture Minister, Jack Lang, decides that the Paris Opera Ballet School should be better installed, to leave the Palais Garnier (Paris, France) and to move closer to the Parc de Nanterre, near Paris.

A glass structure links the movement between the three sections and modulates relations between the city and the park. The teenagers and children are invited to explore a fourth world: a garden and courtyard with flowers facing the park. In the dance building, the grand spiral staircase leads up to dance studios positioned along a panoramic walkway, gradually revealing the various rooms, distant views, the park and the landings where students meet.

The layout of student rooms were developed with the pupils. The dance is a celebration of space. The architecture is the medium of the movement. The dancing room belongs to the dancer what the painter’s white canvas is for the artist. Seeing in order to move, moving in order to see.

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