Complementing this work of Carlos Ott, opened in 1989, requires respect for its historic heritage. Showing the original building to best advantage while respecting the volumetry of its three emblematic cylinders, clearly identifying the contemporary interventions and staying in line with the original architectural continuity are the project’s three fundamental principles. The project aims at making flows clearer and more functional and creating additional qualitative leased surfaces for developing the Opéra’s economic activities.   

The project makes use of all the existing spaces and creates space for development within the thicknesses of the new structures. On the Rue de Lyon, a double-height covered plaza is being created for receiving the public, on both sides of the existing cylinder. An interior street and a vegetated patio will open the ground floor to the basement level and amplify the area devoted to ticketing. All façades of the original project which could be preserved have been, including the emblematic 90 by 90 grille.

An extension housing new workshops will fill the space between the Opéra Bastille workshops and the Viaduc des Arts. At this point, where the glass and stone of the opera house meet the brick of the viaduct, the materiality of the new building, made of wood, concrete and vegetated surfaces, underlines the interconnections between the various volumes without altering the legibility of each part. The simplicity of architectural language and of materials provides clear, unified and sculptural legibility for the new volumes whilst subtly referring to the language of 1989.

The project also comprises a new concert hall, new corporate spaces and a restaurant with views and terraces, a conference room, new spaces for the artists (rehearsal halls, studios), specific spaces for the costumes department (tailor shops, fabric library), etc.

The opening of vistas onto the city and the vegetation, like the generous introduction of natural light, is at the core of the bioclimatic design of the new spaces intended for the personnel of the Paris Opera.