Article source: Moussafir Architects

A Southwest suburb of the city of Tours, Joué-le-Tours was upgraded to the status of a town in the 1950s. It was at this point that, together with the town hall and social housing, Joué-le-Tours got its MJC (the Youth and Culture Centre). An initiative of the country’s first Minister of Cultural Affairs, Gaullist and intellectual André Malraux, the MJCs were an important institution in France.

Image Courtesy © Luc Boegly 

• Architects: Moussafir Architects
• Project: Le Temps Machine / The Time Machine
• Location: Joue-Les-tours, France
• Photography: Luc Boegly, Hervé Abbadie, Jérôme Ricolleau, imagedemarc, Benoit Faure, Fred Beaubeau
• Team: Jacques Moussafir with Nicolas Hugoo, Alexis Duquennoy, Narumi Kang, Sofie Reynaert, Jérôme Hervé and Virginie Prié
• Client: Tour(s) PLUS
• Competition: 2005
• Built: 2011
• Budget: 5,300,000 € ex tax
• NSA: 1,753 sqm
• Contractors: DV Construction (general contractor), AMG Féchoz (stage machinery), Bideau (stage electrics), VTI (wooden stage flooring), Edmond Petit (stage fabrics)
• Materials:  colourwashed raw concrete; solvent- & plastics-free FPO roofing membrane by Sika Sarnafil; glazed stainless steel; Fibracoustic panels of wood fibre and rockwool; door/window frames in aluminium (exterior), steel and wood (interior)
• Software used: AutoCAD