983 m2 out of work for the amount of work free of 11

Installed rue Cambon after the fire of the Orsay Palace during the Paris Commune, the Court of Auditors has since a century a tightened island now symbolic of the institution. Its installation on the margins of the Saint-Honoré Street, on the right-of-way of a former convent of which only one remains the Church, was nevertheless laborious. Rehousing decision dragged until 1897 and the construction of the current palais Cambon took then twelve years from 1898 to 1910, because... budget hazard! Logically, its architect, Constant Moyaux, began the work by the building of archives located in bottom of plot. Designed for storing accounting bundles, this utility building is similar to a 9-storey block put on 2 levels of basement and dug a chapeautée inner court of a canopy. "A colossal record", commenting on the architects Marc Daufresne and Ivan Le Garrec, who come to complete the conversion into offices with their brother Laurent Goudchaux spaces.

Invisible from the street, the building is not less remarkable. Built in clear brick and stone, it has facades rhythmic pilasters and hit bays pitched to the doorless lighters which the high modénature is the first skyscraper in Chicago.

This stylistic originality justified its inclusion in the supplementary inventory of historic monuments in 1993. A protection order healthy while the obstruction of the inner court had intervened at the end of the 1970s with the construction of a silo of archives on 5 floors to retrieve the latest levels for offices.

This transformation became insufficient with the expansion of the competence of the Court, including for the annual certification of the accounts of the State. The strengthening of the workforce resulting calls new surfaces of offices. Decided in 2004, the conversion of the building in its entirety is facing two major difficulties: the presence of the elevator added in the Court and the structure of the building, which is a huge shelving with a shear all 4.35 metres and a height under beam of 2.05 meters corresponding to availability of arms, without ladder. Traps cement reinforced (for fire safety) cloning this tight frame and blocks of glass ground movements contribute to spreading light in this intense place of storage.

7,000 m 2 reconquered

Faced with this existing, the architects have operated in three acts to "play with the structure to enter the light and introduce colour".Their first reflex was to deconstruct the silo which obstructed the Court to find the facades overlooking the inner void and recreate on the ground floor atrium under canopy. Their second intervention focused on the Hennebique type concrete structure to release the plateaus of multiple shear, replaced by Poles in Central leader. The lockers cement jumped course. Remember, a span type has been preserved on each floor, recycled into a showcase. Thus modified, the original structure appears in the big day. Ivan Le Garrec speaks of a "revelation of the weft gridding space as an abstract three-dimensional grid" and Marc Daufresne welcomes "the radical rationality of the building thus delivered in his stripped modernity".

A few square metres were sacrificed next to the quest for light. "To decongest these low levels of ceiling, double heights were performed in façade on the Court found, explains Laurent Goudchaux, and Windows on Court were treated on the contemporary mode in a single glazing in a framework of aluminum polished to capture the maximum of clarity."Relay, mirrors were placed in the hollow of the ceiling above the double-height spaces. A bright idea of the first President, Philippe Séguin, ringside of the site leads in landlocked site, with an institution to work and a hypersensitive neighbourhood (the Consulate of the United States), not to mention the visa of the architect of the buildings of France. Addressing disability low height, a few precious centimetres are napped in the thickness of the cover, allowing the installation of false floors for the distribution of weak and strong currents. In essence, the networks run in facades.

Free or partitioned according to the services, these offices trays are surprisingly viable. A few touches of deaf colours on the walls and doors divert attention from the ceilings. Very specifically, 198 jobs are found in the converted building offering net 6.983 m2 out of work for the amount of work free of 11.264.604,50 euros (base markets), arrested by the firm of Tohier & Associates, Economist of the construction. Bet that the Court will be through accounts before the inauguration on October 13.