Jean-Michel Wilmotte

Born in 1948 in Soissons, Jean-Michel Wilmotte is a famous architect, urban planner and designer who has worked throughout his career in a wide field of investigations, architecture, interior architecture, museography, urban planning and design. He has benefited from a great notoriety, acquired thanks to an increased media coverage but also on several contests, prestigious commissions such as the apartments of the Élysée Palace in 1983 or the office of the French ambassador in Washington in 1984. His experience reflects an appetite to create, to conquer, to seduce and to be recognized.

The work of the architect-designer is versatile, he focuses in particular on the layout of spaces with a work on light, graphics but also on balance, coherence, then leaving free rein to some touches of fantasy. He pays particular attention to the transitions which are then a way to merge form and space. It links his work to pure architecture. He seeks to restore the strength of materials such as metal, glass or granite and according to him, "I fight with the materials, I dig them to discover what they hide, what they have in the belly". In short, he tends towards a logical and deep reflection to express the essence of things. His creative process is not only purely functional, but shows a sense of order and harmony.

More recently, Wilmotte has been exploring new possibilities. In particular, he has investigated the fields of "environmental design" by collaborating with numerous industrial publishers. The lines of his pieces are sober and pure while maintaining a certain authenticity. At the same time, he has remained very conscious of the constraints of industry, with technology sometimes dictating the shape of the object. For him, in the development of spaces, must remain a unity. His work reflects a tailor-made approach with great importance given to details, transitions and materials in order to give volume to the fittings.

Thus, Wilmotte is described as an innovator who seeks to reinvent himself with a constant requirement. He founded his own architectural firm in Paris in 1975. Today, he manages a multitude of projects in France and abroad. He has notably realized projects for the Bunka Mura in Tokyo and the spaces under the Louvre pyramid in Paris. He has also established two subsidiaries in London and Venice. In 2005, he created a foundation to celebrate the thirty years of the agency as well as the W prize, whose objective is to discover young talented architects and to promote contemporary architecture