Laboratory Highrise Necker

The competition solution for the modernization of the Faculty of Medicine delivers the required general improvement in efficiency at the same time as putting a new address on the map. The nine-storey tower – built in 1966 by Le Corbusier’s disciple André Wogenscky – will receive a distinctive new entrance building, which leads the way into the underground podium level, the communicative heart of the ensemble. Once the rebuild is complete, the restaurant and an enlarged library will be situated here alongside the existing auditoria and seminar rooms.

The entrance building develops the motif of the sunken patios, which bring daylight into the seminar rooms in the basement level, by spatially inverting them into a glazed building. The interplay between open and closed patios continues on the front square with more glass cubes, which also serve to light the library from above. The facade, comprising of glass elements of varying degrees of opacity, is another new feature. While retaining the original grid, it envelops the building and opens out on the short sides.