Cité Falguière is a cul-de-sac deep in the Left Bank that was developed between 1868 and 1880. Once home to a community of painters and sculptors, the original two-story workshops were all replaced by much taller apartment blocks in the 1960s. All except for number 11, or Atelier 11—a completely intact fragment of a scene that once included more than 100 artists including Amedeo Modigliani, Chaïm Soutine, Paul Gauguin, Constantin Brancusi, and Tsuguharu Foujita. Paris firm TNT Architecture will manage the project as architect of record, and will carry out a design scheme conceived and developed by Toronto-based gh3*. Along the way, Studio Gang’s Paris office and French firm Freaks Architecture will advise on design and construction decisions. The project’s constellation of firms offers more than enough guidance to move forward with the renovations and the shared challenge couldn’t be simpler: to modernize the building while also preserving what all concerned have described as its essential “soul”—what makes it special as a last survivor of an important art community in a city that has a mixed track record on protecting its cultural heritage.

➜ TNT Architecture, gh3*, Studio Gang, and Freaks Architecture to reveal, not retrofit, a historic Paris atelier, published by The Architect’s Newspaper, 2023