2022 Villa Albertine residents Susan Eliasson and Anthony James from GRAU architecture agency unveil the new landscape and entrance surrounding the beloved medieval cathedral in the heart of Paris. No easy feast for an historical site welcoming more than 20 million visitors a year…

Susanne Eliasson and Anthony Jammes are urban development architects, founders of the GRAU agency, and winners of the 2016 Palmarès des jeunes urbanistes. GRAU (short for “Good Reasons to Afford Urbanism”) operates in the space between architecture and urban planning. Boasting over ten years’ experience in France and Europe, and through a range of urban renewal and densification projects in existing areas, it has expertise in housing-related issues. Susanne teaches in Düsseldorf; Anthony teaches in Versailles.

In their work, the architects-urbanists of Collectif GRAU are exploring the ways in which individuals have made the city a place to call home, where the development of collective relationships is not standing in the way of feeling safe or intimate. They actually draw their inspiration in how our homes are being structured, mirroring the building of interconnexions in our societies. They also focus on the building of “garden cities”, on how our social structures can fit in the environment with which we are endowed by nature. The redesign of the new Parvis de Notre-Dame has been thought in this perspective, driven by the will to respect and honor the features of the pre-existing site.

These programs are possible in part thanks to the Jean Bodfish Memorial Fund and the support of our partners: Villa Albertine, the French Consulate in Chicago, the Driehaus Museum and Hana Pietri Gallery.