The French architects Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal are famous for their belief in keeping existing buildings whenever possible, no matter how unpromising or unloved they may be. They follow, in effect, an architectural version of the Hippocratic oath – first, don’t demolish. It’s a message that has never been more pertinent, as it dawns on the construction industry that constant demolition and rebuilding is an environmentally devastating activity. The husband-and-wife team have been putting this idea into practice for decades, in projects such as the renovation of social housing blocks at Cité du Grand Parc in Bordeaux and the Tour Bois-le-Prêtre in Paris, and art centres such as the FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais in Dunkirk and the Palais de Tokyo in Paris.
The latest recognition of their achievement is the 2023 Soane medal, awarded by the Sir John Soane’s Museum in London to those who “have furthered and enriched the public understanding of architecture”. Keeping the already-there is not, though, their only concern, nor is it to do with sustainability alone. They like to use words such as “generosity”, “kindness” and, above all, “freedom”, which means that they are always looking to find and create spaces additional to those asked for in a brief, “with no utility, no function”, as Vassal puts it, “in which the user will feel the possibility to be inventive for themselves. Because this space has no name, it’s up to you to create what will happen there.”
