Born in Marseille, Manuelle Gautrand is a graduate of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Montpellier. She founded her Paris-based practice,
Manuelle Gautrand Architecture, in 1991. She specializes in diverse projects, ranging from cultural venues and offices to housing and commercial spaces, both in France and internationally.
A winner of the European Prize for Architecture in 2017 (she was the first woman and the first French architect to receive this prestigious honor), she has completed several notable buildings in Paris, including Citroën’s c42 showroom on the Champs-Élysées and the ava Tower at La Défense.
Her design philosophy centers on “re-enchanting the city” through creativity, innovation, and bold solutions that evoke emotion and surprise: ”Far away from standards and international architecture, we are always aiming to find the DNA of a city and its site, defining a sense of place with a very contextual approach, and with projects that bring beauty and poetry to their place.”
