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Contemporary Nîmes

Foster, Portzamparc, Raysse, Kurokawa, Nouvel: today’s architecture facing Rome.

Distance
5.3 km
Walking
1 h 16 on foot
With visits
about 4 h 15
Stops
6
Musée de la Romanité1Carré d'Art2Place d’Assas3Place du Marché4Le Colisée, by Kishō Kurokawa5Nemausus, by Jean Nouvel6
Map : © OpenStreetMap contributors, tuiles OpenFreeMap

Stops

  1. Musée de la Romanité

    Here you are in front of the Museum of Roman History, the Musée de la Romanité, facing the Arena. Opened on 2 June 2018, it was designed by the architect Elizabeth de Portzamparc. Look at its façade: a pleated glass drape whose blades recall a mosaic, answering the stone arches of the amphitheatre.

    610 m to the next stop

  2. Carré d’Art

    Here you are in front of the Carré d’Art, facing the Maison Carrée. This building of glass, concrete and steel is the work of the British architect Norman Foster. He won the 1984 international competition against rivals such as Jean Nouvel, Frank Gehry, Arata Isozaki and César Pelli.

    260 m to the next stop

  3. Place d’Assas

    You are on the place d’Assas, on the western edge of the Écusson, on boulevard Victor-Hugo. This square was completely redesigned in 1989 by the artist Martial Raysse, at the request of Mayor Jean Bousquet, who wanted to combine past and modernity. Raysse placed two monumental fountains here with two large figures facing each other.

    690 m to the next stop

  4. Place du Marché

    You are on the place du Marché, a small square in the Écusson lined with café terraces. In the centre, the fountain features the crocodile, the emblem of Nîmes. Its origin goes back to antiquity: after the battle of Actium, in 31 BC, coins struck to celebrate Octavian’s victory showed a crocodile chained to a palm, a symbol of Egypt conquered by Rome.

    2.0 km to the next stop

  5. Le Colisée, by Kishō Kurokawa

    You are now in front of the Colisée, a round complex of offices, homes and shops, on Rue du Colisée, in the south of the town. Its designer was not from Nîmes: he was the Japanese architect Kishō Kurokawa, founder of the movement known as Metabolism. In the early 1990s, at the entrance to the town, he built a deliberately contemporary building here, in glass and reinforced concrete.

    1.8 km to the next stop

  6. Nemausus, by Jean Nouvel

    Here you are in front of Nemausus, a pair of social housing blocks designed by the architect Jean Nouvel in the south of Nîmes, in 1986. Its name echoes that of ancient Nîmes. First look at the façades: the walls are clad in aluminium panels, and the terrace doors are also aluminium, which gives the whole complex the air of a ship or a machine.