Mateo Arquitectura opens a Paris office
The Spanish architect Josep Lluís Mateo, founder of Mateo Arquitectura, has just opened offices in Paris. The new practice takes the French-language version of the name, Mateo Architecture.
What has Mateo Arquitectura built in France?
Based in Boulogne-Billancourt, the Spanish architect completed the La Factory office building in 2010. Clad in zinc, the building is distinctive for its load-bearing façade, which allows generous open-plan office floors free of columns.
In Toulouse, the "ville rose", Josep Lluís Mateo completed housing in the Andromède ZAC in Blagnac, close to the airport, in 2013.
In Bordeaux, the housing designed by Josep Lluís Mateo places the car park at the centre of the plot, which makes it possible to line the streets with small terraced houses and to give the apartments above them their own terraces.
The practice is currently working on a higher education school in Montpellier, the ESMA.
The architect was among the finalists for the Lascaux IV museum, and you can see his proposal here.
Even so, the architect's major works remain in Spain, notably the film centre in Barcelona and the cultural centre in Castelo Branco, in which an immense concrete volume appears to levitate, resting on two concrete cores.