Paul Andreu (10 July 1938 – 11 October 2018) was a French architect, known for his designs of multiple airports such as

Charles de Gaulle Airport Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport , also known as Roissy Airport, is the primary international airport serving Paris, the capital city of France. The airport opened in 1974 and is located in Roissy-en-France, northeast of Paris. It is named for ...

in Paris, and multiple prestigious projects in China, including the

National Centre for the Performing Arts National Centre for the Performing Arts may refer to * National Centre for the Performing Arts (China) The National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) (), colloquially described as The Giant Egg (巨蛋), is an arts centre containing an opera ...

in Beijing.

Early life and education

Andreu was born at Caudéran (

Gironde Gironde ( , US usually , ; , ) is the largest department in the southwestern French region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. Named after the Gironde estuary, a major waterway, its prefecture is Bordeaux. In 2019, it had a population of 1,623,749.

), in southwest France. He graduated in 1958 from the

École Polytechnique (, ; also known as Polytechnique or l'X ) is a ''grande école'' located in Palaiseau, France. It specializes in science and engineering and is a founding member of the Polytechnic Institute of Paris. The school was founded in 1794 by mat ...

and continued his studies at the

École des ponts ParisTech École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * Éco ...

, graduating in 1961. He next studied under architect Paul Lamarche in the

École des Beaux-Arts ; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth centu ...

, graduating in 1968.

Projects

Andreu was responsible for the design of numerous airports, including

Ninoy Aquino International Airport Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA ; ; ), also known as Manila International Airport (MIA), is the main international airport serving Metro Manila in the Philippines. Located between the cities of Pasay and Parañaque, about south of ...

(Manila), Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (Jakarta),

Shanghai Pudong International Airport Shanghai Pudong International Airport is one of the two international airports serving Shanghai, China. Pudong Airport serves both international flights and a smaller number of domestic flights, while the city's other major airport, Shanghai ...

in China,

Abu Dhabi International Airport Zayed International Airport (), also known as Abu Dhabi International Airport, is the primary international airport serving Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It is the second busiest airport in the UAE after Dubai Inte ...

Dubai International Airport Dubai International Airport () is the primary international airport serving Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and is the world's busiest airport by international passenger traffic as of 2024. It is also the busiest airport in the Middle East as ...

Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport () is the international airport of Tehran, the capital of Iran. It is located 2 kilometers (1 mi) of Vahnabad and southwest of Tehran and is named for Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran's first supreme lead ...

Cairo International Airport Cairo International Airport (; ''Maṭār El Qāhira El Dawli'') is the principal international airport of Cairo and the largest and busiest airport in Egypt. It serves as the primary hub for Egyptair and Nile Air as well as several other a ...

Brunei International Airport Brunei International Airport (BIA) (, Jawi alphabet, Jawi: لاڤڠن تربڠ انتارابڠسا بروني ) is the primary international airport and official airport of entry; one of two airports in the Sultanate of Brunei, Brunei Darussala ...

, and the

, and

Orly Airport Paris Orly Airport (, ) is one of two international airports serving Paris, France, the other one being Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG). It is located partially in Orly and partially in Villeneuve-le-Roi, south of Paris. It serves as a sec ...

in Paris.

He was in charge of planning and constructing

(Roissy) in Paris from 1967 on. On 23 May 2004 a portion of Terminal 2E collapsed, killing four people. Terminal 2E, inaugurated in 2003, is the seventh terminal at Roissy by Andreu, and has been described as one of Andreu's boldest designs. The collapse was attributed by the ad hoc administrative enquiry commission to a variety of technical causes and the lack of margins of safety in the design. Andreu blamed the collapse on poor execution by the building companies. Andreu's other projects included the

Grande Arche La Grande Arche de la Défense (; "The Great Arch of the Defense"), originally called La Grande Arche de la Fraternité (; "Fraternity"), is a monument and building in the business district of La Défense and in the commune of Puteaux, to the west ...

La Défense La Défense () is a major business district in France's Paris metropolitan area, west of the city limits. It is located in Île-de-France region's Departments of France, department of Hauts-de-Seine in the Communes of France, communes of Courbe ...

in Paris (as associate of Johann Otto von Spreckelsen) and the National Grand Theater of China enclosed in a titanium and glass shell near Beijing's

Tiananmen Square Tiananmen Square or Tian'anmen Square () is a city square in the city center of Beijing, China, named after the Tiananmen ("''Gate of Heavenly Peace''") located to its north, which separates it from the Forbidden City. The square contains th ...

which was inaugurated on 22 December 2007. In 2008, Andreu was hired to design a cultural centre and ticket office in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

's new Quartier des Spectacles entertainment district.

Other activities

In 2011, Andreu became dean emeritus and chair professor of the Architecture Department at

Zhejiang University Zhejiang University (ZJU) is a public university, public research university in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China. It is affiliated with the Ministry of Education (China), Ministry of Education. The university is part of Project 211, Project 985, and D ...

Hangzhou Hangzhou, , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ; formerly romanized as Hangchow is a sub-provincial city in East China and the capital of Zhejiang province. With a population of 13 million, the municipality comprises ten districts, two counti ...

, China, where he taught three months per year. In 2015 and 2016, he was a member of the Prix Versailles judges panel.Prix Versailles website
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References

External links

www.paul-andreu.com
Andreu's homepage *

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

News
Profile: Paul AndreuOfficial report of the enquiry commission

* * Gerhard Bissell
''Andreu, Paul''
in: ''

Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon Thieme-Becker is a German biographical dictionary of artists. Thieme-Becker The dictionary was begun under the editorship of Ulrich Thieme (1865–1922) (volumes one to fifteen) and Felix Becker (1864–1928) (volumes one to four). It was compl ...

(Artists of the World)'', Suppl. I, Saur, Munich 2005, from p. 344 (in German). {{DEFAULTSORT:Andreu, Paul 1938 births 2018 deaths People from Gironde Lycée Louis-le-Grand alumni 20th-century French architects 21st-century French architects French civil engineers École Polytechnique alumni École des Ponts ParisTech alumni Corps des ponts Commandeurs of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Grand Officers of the Ordre national du Mérite Officers of the Legion of Honour Members of the Académie des beaux-arts Academic staff of Zhejiang University