French architectural partnership formed in 1957 by Michel Andrault (b Montrouge, 17 Dec 1926) and Pierre Parat (b Versailles, 16 April 1928). Both Andrault and Parat studied architecture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, graduating in 1955, and they formed their partnership after winning an international competition for the Basilica of Syracuse (1957; completed 1994). In the 1960s, following on the housing work of Candilis-Josic-Woods, Andrault and Parat built a very large number of housing complexes in various French towns, including Bordeaux, Marseille, Montpellier and Nanterre, culminating in the construction of a group of terraced units (1972–80) in the new town of Evry. For its commercial and public commissions the partnership’s trademark became the bold contrast between a core of ‘brutalist’ concrete, expressing vertical circulation, and adjoining cubes of reflective glass. This formula was well adapted to suburban office buildings such as the Caisse Régionale de Crédit Agricole (1969–70) in Auxerre; it was less successful when blown out of proportion at the educational facility for the Faculté des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines Tolbiac (1971–3) in Paris, but another building based on similar principles, the faceted Tour Totem (1975–8), Paris, is one of the most original skyscrapers in the Front de Seine development. The bold design of the headquarters of the Agence Havas (1970–73), Neuilly-sur-Seine, with a cylindrical foyer and a main building expressed by horizontal metal beams, conveys an impression of dynamism close in spirit to Erich Mendelsohn’s department stores in Germany of the late 1920s. In 1985 Andrault and Parat were awarded the Grand Prix National d’Architecture by the French government for their monumental and mechanistic sports arena, the Palais Omnisports de Bercy (1979–84) near the Gare de Lyon, Paris, in which four concrete shafts, surrounded by sloping grass-covered mounds, support huge metal beams.

• Andrault and Parat
  • Chemetov, Paul