New french cultural center in Tunisi

date: 2010
client: Ambassade de France en Tunisie – Service de coopération et d’Action culturelle
object:  New French Cultural Center in Tunisi – Restoration of Petit Lycée Carnot, Tunisi
location: Tunisi
size data:
Covered surface 4,160 sq.m.;
Total gross floor surface 3,910 sq.m.
services: Preliminary project

The renovation project of the Ex Petit Lycée Carno building for the French Embassy in Tunisi sets an objective to unite the separate buildings in a single “new” container able to express and reinforce the image of the French Cultural servicesIt is to declare a new “spirit” of openness, modernity and renewal that the intervention on the image of the building is undertaken. This urban unit will give the perception of “lightness”, transparency, permeability of its fronts, but at the same time it will have to impose itself in silence as a symbol, as a “depositary” of the French culture.The white colour of the histrorical skin of the building will dialog with the iridescent colours of the new glass facade and its transparency blended with the “mashrabya” texture will attract and reveal to the public the numerous vital spaces present inside, offering an insight into the internal activities of the building.The entrance is located at the main front, where the facade dilates to let the urban pedestrian pavement reach the heart of the Institute uncovering the mix of its spaces: from welcoming areas to cafes, audiovisual libraries, exhibition spaces thus creating a direct contact with the French culture. The heart of the building is a sensorial garden with its natural aromatic essences, sound of water and operating of the functional spaces which recreate the fragmentariness and vivacity of a typical Tunisian urban fabric interpreted by a French genius.