The Fondation Avicenne
 

The 2026 Claude Parent Prize award ceremony will take place at the Avicenne Foundation, one of Claude Parent's iconic buildings, a listed historical monument, located at the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris, which reopened at the end of 2024 after a complete renovation. Built from 1959 to 1969 by Claude Parent and André Bloc, in association with the Iranian architects Hedar Ghiai and Mossem Foroughi, it was moved to the Cité Internationale in 1972 and renamed the Avicenne Foundation, after the great 11th-century Persian physician and philosopher.

It is the tallest building at the Cité Internationale, reaching a height of 38 meters, and houses 110 students.

A landmark in 20th-century metal architecture
 

An avant-garde building due to its radical design, it contributed to the renown of Claude Parent, who became a member of the Academy of Fine Arts in 2005. It is one of the rare examples in France of a building suspended from a macrostructure. The building is based on a macrostructure made up of three portal frames of welded sheet metal, reaching a height of approximately thirty-eight meters. The secondary, suspended framework forms the grid of the two four-story residential blocks, separated by a recessed floor reserved for the director's residence.
 

The west facade and the two windowless gables act as a screen against the noise of the ring road. Only the fully glazed facade benefits from natural light. A second, independent building, tucked beneath the first, houses the common areas. Elevators provide access between the two buildings. The architectural aesthetic stems from the contrast between the black structural elements and the white, recessed facades.

With the house's only staircase relegated to the exterior, it becomes monumental, forming a double inverted spiral. Conceived as a sculpture, the steel staircase makes the building instantly recognizable from the ring road.

Iconic, it has established itself as one of the most emblematic architectural landmarks of the early 1970s. Due to its architectural avant-garde nature, the Avicenne Foundation, along with its footprint and the landscape design defined by the pathways, has been listed as a Historic Monument since 2008. It thus joins the list of protected houses within the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris.
 

For more information, visit the website of the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris.

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