2013
Signage furniture at Place du Château
The two main objectives of this new design were to highlight the monuments lining the square and to make the five museums surrounding it more visible: the Archaeological Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Decorative Arts, the Musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame, and the Cabinet of Prints and Drawings. Created in collaboration with Catherine Linder, a landscape architect and urban planner, a long sandstone bench-signage structure unfolds along the length of Place du Château, facing the side of the Cathedral. Carved from large independent blocks, this structure provides access to the various museum entrances while supporting the natural flow of pedestrians. The sandstone installation is constructed on three levels: a ground level, a seating level, and a reading level. The various texts presenting the museums, the Cathedral, the square, and the neighborhood appear in relief against the flat surface of the sandstone, evoking the engravings found within the Cathedral. They are composed of widely spaced lettering. A narrower letter spacing helps highlight the titles and main concepts within the body of text without changing the typeface. These variations in spacing create a lace-like effect, a contemporary interpretation of the Cathedral’s sculpted façade. Each of the three languages used has its own typeface and typographic character. Some vertical surfaces feature directional information, engraved into the walls of the blocks.
Design Team — Ruedi Baur, Stéphanie Brabant, and Maria Roszkowska