wejetset - magazine - places to live: paris' 45 rue louis blanc by ecdm

places to live: paris' 45 rue louis blanc by ecdm

Within contemporary architecture, you’ll see firms take drastic stands against the traditional designs of their neighbors. For instance a futuristic building might come swerving out of a street corner while adjacent buildings stand frozen in history. Don’t get us wrong, we like our fair share of independent expression on the backdrop of things more orthodox, but we really appreciate it when an architect can bridge the two worlds – when they can take modern elements and fuse them with traditional ones making the entire city block look like a family, no matter how distant the cousins. That’s why 45 Rue Louis Blanc is one of our favorite designs from Emmanuel Combarel Dominique Marrec Architects (ECDM).

As ECDM describes: “The construction of the housing project at 45 rue Louis Blanc in the Xth Arrondissement of Paris is the result of a project launched in 1998 by the Paris city real-estate authority. The property developer was expected to take a piece of land measuring about 600 m² and replace an abandoned squat there which had been slotted for demolition with a low-cost building that adhered to the High Environmental Quality standards still being determined at the time. The building that architects Dominique Marrec and Emmanuel Combarel completed in early 2007 meets this challenge with both efficiency and elegance.” Click Read More for additional information and photos.