A Londoner who worked at the Renzo Piano and OMA offices, Farshid MOUSSAVI serves up a multicultural and transversal architecture, subtly tinged with her Iranian roots. With FOA (Foreign Office Architects), her first agency founded with Alejandro Zaera-Polo in 1995, and now FMA (Farshid Moussavi Architecture), she relentlessly questions culture, the city and time.

An interview by Sophie TRELCAT and an article by Jonathan GLANCEY

Photos by Romain ERENA, Hélène BINET, Satoru MISHIMA and Ramon PRATT

Nr. 388 - FOCUS section

United in the Sweet Earth: Experimental Utopias in America (2005) series, these 60 photos by Joel STERNFELD are an attempt to document some of the social utopias that flourished in the United States in the past two centuries. Joel STERNFELD has made a highly revealing attempt to pinpoint them, or what is left of them. However, one question stubbornly returns in this work: what can a single image express of the spirit of a utopia and the history of its embodiment in a community and an architectural structure?

A portrait by Régis DURAND

Nr. 388 - ART section

Less than a year from completion, this "other Louvre" reveals its promises as a museum and in terms of space. This structure stitched together by SANAA on an old slag heap spreads its wings, creating a new dialogue with art and its mining landscape.

An article by Pierre FREY

Photos by Adrien BUCHET

Nr. 388 - CHANTIER section

With his unique pieces of furniture, Maarten BAAS invites us into a surprising dreamlike world. This young Dutch designer, together with Bas den Herder, is experimenting improbable techniques creating spontaneous objects capturing his imagination. It is stimulating work.

A portrait by Rafaël MAGROU

Photos by Paul BARBARA, Maarten VAN HOUTEN, Lisa KLAPPE, Bas PRINCEN and Frank TIELEMANS

Nr. 388 - DESIGN section

The Buildings Made of Sky series by the photographer Peter WEGNER, begun in 2004, is not without reminding us of the invisible cities of Italo Calvino. A mirror or negative of Manhattan is shown through a grid of images. This could have belonged in "Cities and the Sky", one of the series of cities created by the Italian writer. Buildings Made of Sky proposes a representation, by the photographer this time, of these utopian places.

A text by Fanny LÉGLISE

Nr. 388 - INSPIRATION section

Dutch landscape designer Piet OUDOLF invites his hardy and wild creations into the public space, as if to set them free. This balancing act of constantly moving nature strives to foster exchanges between gardens and their architectural surroundings.

A report by Dany SAUTOT

Photos by Iwan BAAN, Walter HERFST and Piet OUDOLF

Nr. 388 - PAYSAGE section

One foot in Bordeaux, the other in Paris, the young architects' office, jointly founded in 2008 by the hot-headed Jérémy NADAU and Vincent LAVERGNE, is blazing a critical trail with a model-free regional architecture. In France, Switzerland and in New York, their understanding of context and their first projects playing with codes have seduced.

A portrait by Alexandre LABASSE

Nr. 388 - ÉMERGENCE section

The Geneva architect Charles PICTET, whose mind-set is a combination of cosmopolitan elegance and being a member of one of the upper-middle-class families of Geneva, is one of the emerging figures of the Swiss architectural scene. Although none of the leading amenities which develop a reputation have been designed by him, he has quietly accumulated distinctionsacross the country, despite the cultural sensitivities that divide it. Presentation of five projects.

A portrait by Francesco DELLA CASA

Photos by Francesca GIOVANELLI, Thomas JANTSCHER and Adrien BUCHET

Nr. 388 - PROJETS section

This is a frontier city, whose light attracts dreamers from all continents and as many potential wrecks. TANGIER, at the tip of Morocco, points to the ambition of a whole kingdom, seen in pharaonic constructions and nostalgic urban planning.

A report (text and photos) by Philippe TRÉTIACK

Nr. 388 - RETOUR DE section