Building Moments.(Society and the Arts)(Jean Nouvel)(Interview)

Byline: Cathleen McGuigan

Pritzker Prize winner Jean Nouvel on his battle to reshape a world of cities that all look the same.

Jean Nouvel, 62, is the 2008 winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, only the second French designer honored in the 30-year history of the award. The Pritzker jury cited Nouvel's "persistence, imagination, exuberance and, above all, an insatiable urge for creative experimentation." His buildings include the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Musee du Quai Branly in Paris (both opened in 2006) and future designs for La Philharmonie de Paris, the Tour de Verre in New York and the Louvre Abu Dhabi. He spoke to NEWSWEEK's Cathleen McGuigan. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: Congratulations. You don't have a signature style; each project is unique. Tell me about your philosophy of design.

Nouvel: When I began to study architecture in the '60s, I was shocked because I saw a lot of buildings that were similar all around the world, in the international style [modernism]. They were not linked to the different cities or to different geographic climates. So very early I had a strong idea about the relationship between architecture and the situation of the architecture. With the evolution of the world in the last 40 years, I think it's worse, worse and worse. When you go around the world, all the cities are the same. So I always work on the question of identity--linking the architecture to the cultural identity of the city, the climate, the vegetation, as well as to poetic and historical things. For these reasons, my buildings generally never use the same vocabulary, the same colors or the same materials. But, of course, I have some permanent values, such as the epoch, the time we are living today. Architecture is a petrification of a moment of culture. That is my definition of architecture.

You've built many projects in Europe but now you're also designing in the Middle East.

Yes, I am working on the Louvre Abu Dhabi, and it is really a very good situation. It is part of a cultural neighborhood, on an island, along with projects by Frank Gehry, who is doing the Guggenheim there, and also projects by Zaha Hadid and Tadao Ando.