Michel Rémon & Associés

Speech by Michel Rémon during C2N Saclay foundation stone laying ceremony in the presence of Madam the Minister

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This brief word on the architecture of the C2N Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Research Center is intended for its researchers.

The building is about you
It’s about the subject of your work - the infinitely small, the elusive and incomprehensible matter - without the help of your instruments, your electronic microscopes which are the indispensable mediums between you, men and women just like us, and the object of your research - power 10 - 9 times smaller than us.

Human scale in architecture is often discussed...
But here - there is no human scale.
The facades are deliberately without scale. The built volume has an elusive dimension          - no door nor window provides reference to the human body... The facades have no known reference to measure this building. We don't know if it's big or small. The building envelope is strange and seems inaccessible…

… It is expressed as a line
A line beyond scale.
A line that tells a story of perfect geometry.
An abstract geometry, sculpted by the light during the day.

From the north, seen from the street, we will see to the right a large white monolith - the white room - set back at the bottom of the site to protect it from vibrations emanating from the road. It is a universe unto itself - 3000m² of research facilities with more than 8000m² of ancillary plant necessary for its operation.

Below, above, slipped inside - they are everywhere!
Researchers inhabit a machine. François Mariani and Artelia engineers planned
this facility with us. The machine is framed to the east and north by a cluster
of laboratories arranged in parallel lines. Somewhere between them, to the right,
the entrance will become evident... and there, the lobby will open up.

And then - the inside the exact opposite of the outside
Scale will be everywhere...in doors, stairs, mezzanines...
The building will seem compact and drawn from the outside…
It will appear vast and generous within.
Seemingly void of light from the outside, it will be bathed in natural light inside.
The enigmatic appearance of the building envelope will reveal an extremely legible and very “human” space inside.
It will be a place of work and encounters for researchers and their guests...
But that, you will see during its inauguration. We will walk there together.

A brief word on the “mastabas”
Giancarlo Faini and Antony Piorowicz chose not to lay a foundation stone "as usual", but to make a "foundation mastaba".
Accordingly, I shall explain what is a mastaba.
These are the anti-vibration bases of electron microscopes.
Initially, Isabelle Sagnes called them the pyramids of Saqqara but their designer Alain Fournol, our "Grand Master of vibrations", preferred the more radical name of "mastabas". He calculated and dimensioned them. Right now, he is testing them, one by one. They are completely independent of the foundations of the building to be wholly immobile. To give you an idea - each required 23 concrete mixers, that is more than 170 cubic metres. On completion, these 6 mastabas will not be visible.

Some images of their design and two initial images of their construction by the contractor, Bouygues.

Michel Rémon