Le Monde HQ Sketchbooks
A hand-drawn diary
2023–2025
Technical details
Between 2017 and 2020, French artist Frédéric Chaume visited the construction site of the new Le Monde headquarters in Paris over 250 times, documenting the building's transformation from a unique artistic perspective. His work captures the many phases of construction, highlighting moments rich in human activity and urban transformation.
Le Monde HQ Sketchbooks showcases Chaume's sketches and engravings through a selection of 232 works. Designed and published by Snøhetta to mark the building's fifth anniversary, the book offers a rare, poetic perspective on the construction process.
The book is released for sale in Norway and Scandinavia in June 2025, and in France in the autumn.
Film and photos by OiOiOi
Preserving history
Le Monde's new headquarters was designed by Snøhetta in collaboration with SRA Architectes and completed in 2020. It houses 1,600 employees of the Le Monde Group under the same roof in a unifying, arch-shaped building near Gare d'Austerlitz station in Paris, built above active railway lines. With its open plaza and semi-transparent outer skin, the building connects to the general public and surrounding areas while offering workers and passersby a generous public space in the city.
From the outset, investor and chairman of the board, Pierre Bergé, emphasized the importance of preserving the story behind the building—not just through technical records but through cultural memory. In response, Frédéric Chaume was commissioned to document the process through hand-drawn illustrations, offering a more expressive and enduring record than traditional photography.
A dialogue with the site
Chaume's artistic process unfolded in two stages. Following the site's safety regulations, he could move freely and work anywhere on the site. The initial phase involved making notes and drawings to document the site's progress, using sketchbooks as a medium for experimentation with drawing tools such as black chalk, charcoal, and watercolors.
The second phase took place in the studio, where he created numerous works using copper engravings and drawings on paper. The final prints of the engravings were produced by a master of intaglio printing at Les Ateliers Moret in Paris.
Frédéric Chaume’s drawings go beyond mere documentation. They embody an intimate dialogue between the site, its workers, and the surrounding environment, offering a poetic view of the construction process and the traces left by human activities.
Enriched perspectives
The works are further enriched by poems from Lamiya Shirvanzada, an introduction by Snøhetta co-founder Kjetil Trædal Thorsen, and essays by architect and historian Jean-Louis Cohen and Aedes Architecture Forum director Kristin Feireiss. Together, these contributions deepen the reader's understanding of Chaume's work, framing the artwork within broader architectural and cultural discourses.
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