Manuelle Gautrand, architect explorer

From the movable furniture of Paris' 8,000-sq m seven-floor Gaîté Lyrique theatre, which is dedicated to digital culture in all its forms (music, design, video games, cinema, theatre, dance, fashion, architecture) and will open in early March, to Dominica's luxury mansions, Manuelle Gautrand is the trendiest architect in town. She became famous after the C42, Citroën's showroom on the Champs-Élysées, but her blueprints for the Fondation Pinault on Île Seguin had already endeared her to her peers. She has won more that 80 competitions and signed Saint-Étienne's trade centre, the re-structuring and extension of Villeneuve-d’Ascq's Museum of Modern Art, Contemporary Art and Art Brut and the Mero Beach residence being built in Dominica, among others. Ms. Gautrand likes to surprise herself: "I don't want to specialise, I like to reinvent myself and this career allows me to dabble in everything." A Parisian for the past 20 years, Marseille-raised Gautrand doesn't shy away from controversial concepts. "Sometimes, one has to shake up convention", she smiles.

© LUXIGON