Xippas Art gallery – Paris, France

In the centre of Paris, a few steps from the Picasso Museum, in the heart of the Marais, the rue Vieille du Temple cuts through a neighbourhood in which 18th-century hôtels particuliers coexist interspersed with 19th-century textile workshops. This neighbourhood has been the primary contemporary art district of Paris.

Occupying a former industrial building, U-shaped around a covered courtyard, the Xippas gallery offers three levels of exhibition spaces linked by a circulation sequence of five staircases. In a general effort to form the exhibition spaces into minimalist volumes free of encumbrances, the mechanical rooms were dispersed to the edges of the building and the technical equipment integrated within thick inner walls. As a counterpoint to this architectural discretion, the VIP access stair that steps down to the sunken entrance is distinguished by more sophisticated details. The clean lines of the contemporary staircase dialogue with the 19th-century wrought-iron balustrade.  The polished black granite exterior cladding contrasts with the plaster and whitewashed stone of the basement level exhibition spaces.