Jury-GRANDS PRIX DU DESIGN / Published on April 26, 2021
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Christian Matteau
Landscape Architect
CSW Landscape architects
Gatineau / Ottawa, Canada
PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE – PEOPLE OF DESIGN VERSION!
What prescient youthful memory relates to your present career?
The idea that a waterfall could be something built…
What are three basic rules you learned from your mentors?
Question again and again and invent!
Photo Credit : CANOPÉ académie d’Amiens, licence Creative Commons Attribution. source : canope.ac-amiens.fr
What project launched your career?
My collaboration with Pascale Hannetel for the A16 highway rest area in la Bain de Somme in France.
Any music playing while you work?
No, simply with an open window to hear the sounds that surround me.
Do you work in PJs or three-piece suits?
I prefer to keep my PJ attire for myself!
What is your current design state of mind?
Taking more and more into account the global issues to answer local expectations.
What living designer/architect do you most admire?
Ollafur Eliasson for the sensorial experience created.
BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) for its audacity.
© 2018 Olafur Eliasson
Epizentrum, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Supremus 58 – Oeuvre de Kasimir Malevitch.
What past designer/architect inspires you the most?
Constructivists…
The abstract geometry of Malevitch or even the imaginary or architectural fantasies of Y. Chernikhov.
What is your most marked design quality?
Linking sky and horizon…
How would you like your designs to go down in history?
As positive contributions to society.
What peer quality do you most value?
The capacity to create links between different disciplines and expertises.
Which project is the epitome of your work?
My next project!
How are your country of belonging’s values reflected in your work?
Nordicity, water, extreme seasons varying from-40 to +40 °C.
What always inspires you?
The landscapes from my surrounding Gatineau hills, to the Scottish lochs, from the Tunisian desert and the steep mountains of the Yellow Mountain.
If a spell were to transform you into an object, by all means, what would you like to be, and why?
A Mediterranean olive tree, millennial witness…
What is your favorite place in the world?
Strolling through invisible cities.
Grand Army plaza pers fontaine, Christian Matteau
What design or architecture project do you wish you would have thought of yourself?
A Lautner house, perched in emptiness.
Chemosphere, par John Lautner – Photo credit: www.modernismweek.com
If you could host any three guests, past or alive, over for dinner, who would you choose and what would you dare serving?
André Le Nôtre, Frederick Law Olmsted and Yves Brunier.
A 4 o’clock tea time with pastries.
Livre de Yves Brunier, Landscape architect paysagiste, 1996, Birkhauser Collection.
What is your mantra?
“Aller à l’essentiel :
“Get to the point :
Do little, but well
Do very little, but very well…
Nothing but perfect. ”
Inspired by René Pechère and Mgr Dupanloup.
What is your dream? THINK BIG!
To carry out a project without budgetary constraints that meets the needs of users through its social, environmental and cultural resilience.
Rebuilding Babylon would be one of those dreams.
Consult other projects of Christian Matteau
