Maison de la Culture

The Maison de la Culture in Grenoble was designed by André Wogenscky to mark the 1968 Winter Olympics. It has long been a symbol, a somewhat isolated object resembling the prow of a ship beached, as it were, in the town. In 2004, the building began its new life as a cultural multiplex after six years of reconstruction. Architect Antoine Stinco completely revamped stage amenities and routing, while discreetly adding a new wing connected to the old part by two glass footbridges. For Stinco it was a matter of "unlocking a building suspended above a green space, without resisting its architecture. I did not want to arrive at a vocabulary that opposed this building which symbolizes Grenoble's 'heroic period'...", hence the complete absence of lavishness. This is a new complex for a city that has always demonstrated a large appetite for culture - put to the test here with a sober, almost too sober setting - which seeks to be neither very rich, nor ostentatiously poor.