Omar Take Architectural Consulting - Omar A.Take - Architect ...

PLACE D’ITALIE COMPLEX – PARIS, FRANCEThis was one of the most enjoyable projects I have worked on – When I arrived at the Paris Office in 1989, theProject was just about going to be executed. The land belonged to the City of Paris and the building wasfinanced by a French developer. The Mayor at the time was Jacques Chirac. Mr. Chirac who later on becamethe President of the French Republic was personal friend of Kenzo Tange. He invited Tange to be the Architectof the Project.Our office did the Preliminary Design and Design Development in association with a local engineering office forthe structural and MEP systems. However, in France it is the responsibility of the general contractor to preparethe working drawings and shop drawings. That’s where the nightmare started – obviously the contractorprepared the most basic details to save money to the Developer – We were obliged to prepare a parallel set ofworking drawings to show the contractor how to do the work properly which ended up costing our office hundredsof thousands of dollars but we could not allow our first work in France to be disfigured by a contractor – this iswhere FORM FOLLOWS PROFIT!I have to admit that thanks to President Chirac personal intervention we were able at least to get most of whatwe wanted in terms of design and finishing materials. I was lucky to work at the time with the late Peter Rice,who was the most accomplished structural engineer world-wide. He helped us with the steel structure of theCampanile – a high-rise structure housing a panoramic elevator in front of the building where we placed a mobilesculpture designed by Thierry Vide – a famous French Sculptor – it was a huge steel structure moving in thespace with a fantastic display of light at night - The reason why we had the campanile it was reminiscent of thePiazzas in Italy where there would always be a dominating tower.Besides working as a diplomat and lobbying with the City to get approval on our designs, I attended weekly sitemeetings to review and approve the shop drawings and select the finishing materials. I also worked togetherwith Interior Designers for a 3 star studio hotel and a cinema that had the largest screen in Europe. The buildingchanged names from GRAND ECRAN (large screen) to ITALY 2 – the current name. President Chirac decidedto re-name the Place d’Italie – Place Kenzo Tange after his death. Working on this project was my firstexperience to see how projects are designed and executed in France; learning about building codes, ordinancesand regulations, levels of responsibilities, professional liability insurance, politics etc…