{"id":32431,"date":"2016-09-26T09:31:29","date_gmt":"2016-09-26T07:31:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.area-arch.it\/en\/rehabilitation-and-extension-of-the-music-school-louviers\/"},"modified":"2016-09-26T15:45:34","modified_gmt":"2016-09-26T13:45:34","slug":"rehabilitation-and-extension-of-the-music-school-louviers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.area-arch.it\/en\/rehabilitation-and-extension-of-the-music-school-louviers\/","title":{"rendered":"Rehabilitation and Extension of the Music School Louviers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The antique convent of the Penitents, in the city center of Louviers Normandy, is a very exceptional example of \u2018cloister on water\u2018, made of a complex assembly of successive constructions.\u00a0The monastery was built between 1646 and 1659 for the Franciscan brethren. There used to be a church in the\u00a0west and two conventual wings surrounding the central building. The remains of the cloister above the river \u2018L\u2019Epervier\u2019 are forming an \u2018Impressionist\u2019 picture combining stone, vegetation and water in a beautiful harmony. This landscape value has been highlighted and interpreted in the rehabilitation project. The brief was to offer Louviers a new musical school, modern, functional, attractive and representing the town\u2019s cultural policy. The plan was also to highlight the archaeological heritage and its exceptional site in the heart of the city. Finally, the project aimed to display a new image of the place and to shed its prison characteristics. The project of the New Musical School of Louviers in the convent of the Penitents \u2013 24 classrooms, a score library and two big orchestra rooms was raising a certain problematic in term of rehabilitation because of a heavy program implicating substantial interventions: the contemporary extensions have become more important than the existing building.\u00a0These were conceived in a very tight plot which led the architects to fill all free spaces, removing the \u201cbreathings\u201c and raising these extensions on top of existing walls.\u00a0The result is a compact project where the new parts dominate the ancient elements; however, the historical construction is still governing. This is an \u2018intimate\u2019 program within each task requires isolation and concentration and will adapt to the compact and intimate character of the project.\u00a0The second extension, replacing the missing parts of the south wing, exposes its front to the water, towards the\u00a0cloister and the city. Its incredible position represents the key of the project. It hosts the major element of the\u00a0program: the big orchestra hall. It represents the emblem of the musical school and composes the landscape\u00a0with natural elements.\u00a0This fa\u00e7ade fits in a simple rectangular glass box with chrome stripes reflecting the surrounding environment\u00a0and fading in the sky.\u00a0It appears as an echo to music and as a poetic image of the sound.<\/p>\n