French Architect Goes Global

Like a character out of Jules Verne, Jean Nouvel, 62, says that he creates a small world in each building that he designs.

"Every time I'm making architecture, it's in a world
that doesn't exist for me. Each time it's an unfolding of interior
spaces, details, locations, new relations among the elements of the
ensembles, colors and materials that are not always the same. Each
time, I try to create something that works in depth," he said over the
telephone from his Paris office. "I don't believe in architecture that
repeats itself in an automatic way. That's why each of my buildings is
different in its details."

These days, Mr. Nouvel, like Verne, has gone global --
a future concert hall in Paris; skyscrapers in Le Havre, France, and
Doha, Qatar; and a dreamy museum for the sheik of Abu Dhabi. Soon he'll
have three projects in a new world, Manhattan -- 40 Mercer, a somber
condo slab in SoHo; the Hudson-view 100 11th, with some 1,600 windows,
all of different dimensions; and a mixed-use skyscraper fused to the
Museum of Modern Art through shared galleries.

The oft-punned Mr. Nouvel -- new in French -- has fans
from Jacques Chirac to Brad Pitt, who named his daughter Shiloh Nouvel
Jolie-Pitt. Red-State Hines Interests of Houston, developers of 40
Mercer and the MoMA spire, liked Mr. Nouvel enough to hire him to build
an office tower outside Paris, too.

Twenty years ago, a nouveau Nouvel unveiled his
Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, a sleek blend of sculptural economy
and elegant arabesque decoration. Another Parisian landmark is his 1994
Cartier Foundation, a glass and steel transparency in a glass-walled
garden. Not bad for a renegade who once condemned Le Corbusier and all
things modernist.

In New York, his projects are less public, yet 100
11th's façade promises a Nouvel baroque flourish, with a mosaic that
deconstructs its view in 1,600 reflections. (Mr. Nouvel's favorite
buildings, the Sainte Chapelle in Paris and the cathedrals of Chartres
and Rheims, are known for their light.) "The idea was to work with the
view in relation to the Hudson and with the sunset," he said. "I wanted
to escape the traditional neutrality of the curtain wall, which doesn't
immediately express the fact that you are looking." On a clear day, you
can see Nouveau Jersey, and rival Frank Gehry's luminous new AIC
building across the street.