Pierre Roux-Dorlut

Pierre Roux-Dorlut (October 10, 1919 - 19 February 1995) was a French architect and urbanist^[1] from Puy-en-Velay.

Pierre Roux-Dorlut graduated in 1941 at the fine arts school of Marseille^[2] to become a architecte des bâtiments civils et palais nationaux (civil buildings and national palaces architect), a former architectural body in France which specialised in restoration. He met Daniel Badani at the institute in 1946^[3], and the duo founded an architectural firm together in Montpellier.

The firm operated in French West Africa from 1950 to 1958. Roux-Dorlut and Badani designed urbanism plans and buildings in Abidjan and Dakar, such as the Grand Conseil de l'Afrique-Occidentale française de Dakar (Dakar Grand Council of French West Africa; today the Senegalese National Assembly building), or the Abidjan supreme court. The firm was made up of 75 people across Paris, Montpellier and, in the 1950s, Abidjan.^[3]

In France, the firm participated in reconstruction and real estate revitalisation projects, following the devastation of World War II. Such projects include the reconstruction of the Consigne quay in Sète (1946-1950), council estates in Saint-Maurice-Vallon des fleurs and Las Planas in Nice (from 1956), and in the Iranget district of Béziers. These projects demonstrate the firm's integration efforts, namely the use of grey-pink local quarry stones, and the use of ashlar masonry in Béziers.^[2]

For the last two years Pierre Roux-Dorlut has worked in partnership with his wife Christine Roux-Dorlut, an architect who has gained wide experience in her own career.

Christine Roux-Dorlut graduated from the Warsaw Polytechnic, then the Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris and the Institute of Urban Planning at the Sorbonne. She devoted a thesis to the Nancy architect Emmanuel HERE, worked under Le Corbusier’s direction for the development of Venise, collaborated with Bodiansky and Candilis at the Atelier des Bâtisseurs set up by Le Corbusier. She is a member of the Academy of Architecture, President of the Anglo-French Union of Architects, Professor at the Schools of American Arts at Fontainbleau. She received the Beauty Award from the City of Paris, member of CIAM, officier of the Legion of Honour.

Christine Roux-Dorlut has designed numerous collective and one-family housing projects, mainly with the Caisse de Dépôts and Consignations. Other achievements include: the Maure Vieil urban plan (Alpes Maritimes), study of an arts and crafts village, head office of Amalgamated Dental at Rueil Malmaison, housing and service premises in Paris and the Ile de France.

She participated in the urban development plan for Alger (Annassaires new town). Recently she supervised the rehabilitation of the Bel Air Château and estate at Deauville and designed the Gershwin building in Boulogne-sur-Seine. In partnership with Pierre Roux-Dorlut she developed a project for a theme park in a large leisure area, Orlando, Florida. Together they worked on an extensive project at Vence, the home of Matisse, the Artists' City, a centre of contemporary art in the Esterel, a block of one-family housing at Boulogne-sur-Seine, the rehabilitation of a 17th-century château at Montfort l'Amaury.

Roux-Dorlut and Badani's first achievements were in Africa, notably in Abidjan where they built, among other works, the courtrooms for the Palace of Justice, the Central Posts and Telecommunications Building, and various residential districts; in Dakar, where they built the Palais du Grand Conseil, which became the National Assembly of Senegal; and in Bouake, where they built the general hospital.

In France they produced the plans and numerous buildings for the Centre for Nuclear Studies at Marcoul and at Cadarache, competition projects like the Vincennes Stadium, residential complexes both in the South and in the Paris area, and educational, industrial, public, and administrative buildings throughout the country.

In all these projects, Roux-Dorlut expresses a preference for very careful organization of volumes, spaces, and open green areas in relation to their surroundings.

One of their most recent projects is St Louis Hospital, where he introduced new forms and volumes around a seventeenth-century historical monument with great sensitivity and respect. In the University of Nancy, the same care for composition within an urban setting, the extremely well considered relationship between different buildings, and the choice of materials, show a remarkable sensitivity and elegance, as well as his tendency to research new forms for each project.

He is especially interested in large-scale designs, amongst which the project for the new Royal Hippone City and the University of Constantine in Algeria, also major undertakings such as the Cézeaux Science Park at Clermont Ferrand, the regional head offices of Crédit Agricole bank at Montpellier, the National Polytechnic Institute at Nancy and the Urban Development building complex in the Sèvres bridge quarter at Boulogne-sur-Seine.