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The creation of value through architecture

  • Publish On 11 January 2017
  • Frédérique Monjanel

Within the context of the shift from public architectural procurement towards private procurement, the real estate branch of the financial group ING has stood out on a number of occasions by powerfully driving and creating unique architectural operations, while avoiding sidelining their qualities as real estate promoters. Frédérique Monjanel gives us some insight into her career, from her time working in the agency of Jean Nouvel to her current activities as Senior Developer for ING Real Estate. ING could be a testament to the trust that architects should grant their partners in the private sector, resulting in common strategies between clients and architects in the service of cities and their inhabitants.

(interview with Aurélien Gillier  and Christophe Le Gac)

Frédérique Monjanel is the head of real estate development for VINCI Construction France since 2011.

How does one go from architectural design, working with Jean Nouvel, to real estate development for an international firm?

I joined Jean Nouvel’s agency in 1987, where I began working on the project for the Onyx center for culture in Saint-Herblain with Myrto Vitart. After that I participated in the call for tenders for the Centre des Congrès in Tours, that we ended up winning. We had a lot of similar projects coming from public procurement, and then the agency went into a nose dive. The structure had grown too quickly and there were too many teams, which led at one point to a big cash-flow problem and a significant management problem.

In 1994, Jean Nouvel left to pursue new horizons with a new associate. It was at that time that I began to work with ING on various projects, in particular a project in the Czech Republic, initiated by an encounter between Paul Koch and Jean Nouvel. We thus began to work with private, international procurement. In the beginning it was Paul Koch, ING and Jean Nouvel who suggested a strategic urban study on the city of Prague.

Opening on contemporary practices

The response provided by Jean Nouvel was more a vision of city renewal than a classic urban study, thus allowing a private promoter to directly visualize zones that had added value and those that could be potentially developed. 

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