Cité de la Mode et du Design (Docks en Seine)

Cité de la Mode et du Design (Docks en Seine) review

Along the Seine, the striking bright green Cité de la Mode et du Design, designed by Jakob + MacFarlane, is due to open in early 2009, containing restaurants and cafés, a concert and club venue, shops, the Insitut Français de la Mode fashion and management school, and a riverside promenade. The most radical element is what the Franco-New Zealand duo have called thier 'plug over' system - a framework of green steel tubing and screenprinted glass that clips on to the 1907 reinforced concrete warehouse complex beneath to create a new fluid public space. The colour was chosen 'to echo the turgid green of the Seine', says Jakob, who is refreshingly down-to-earth when she talks about the building, which has been variously described as a wave and a crocodile.