Grumbach, Antoine
GRUMBACH, ANTOINE
GRUMBACH, ANTOINE (1942– ), French architect and town planner. Born in Oran, Algeria, Grumbach, a graduate of the Paris Ecole des Beaux-Arts (1967), focused mainly on public housing projects and public transportation (the Bibliothèque subway station of the Meteor line in Paris, transformation of the peripheral Paris boulevards for the creation of a new trolley line). Grumbach devoted his formative years mainly to writing, developing a theory of the influence of collective memory on urban landscape, leading to his social and humanistic approach to urbanism. His participation in the Roma Interrota exhibition in 1977 following his detailed study of the traditional urban fabric of Paris was a turning point in his theoretical development; from that time on he advocated the integration of new buildings in the existing urban matrix, as he views this integration as the unique means of connecting what is new to the social and collective memory of the city.
bibliography:
A. Grumbach, "Figurer par la ruine l'espace de l'absence," in: Travail de mémoire 1914–1998 (1999), 105–9; exhibition booklets: "Antoine Grumbach ou l'art de la mémoire collective"; A. Vidler, "Antoine Grumbach, le laboratoire de l'imaginaire," Centre Georges Pompidou; "Antoine Grumbach," Coll. Jalons, Centre Georges Pompidou.
[Dror Franck Sullaper (2nd ed.)]