This image of his counterproposal and those below courtesy of Connor Moran.
Last night I posted on Connor Moran’s elegant counterproposal for the Rue de la Rivoli side of La Samaritaine, the famous Paris department store. The Notre Dame grad, a native of Naperville, Ill., who now works for Ferguson & Shamamian, in New York City, has answered my request for more and larger images of his proposal. The third image has been used to illustrate a poster for this year’s Stanford White Awards, sponsored by the New York chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art. The SANAA proposal to which Moran responds and the Samaritaine facade now demolished are at the end.
Who can doubt what Parisians would prefer? What the world would prefer?
About David Brussat
This blog was begun in 2009 as a feature of the Providence Journal, where I was on the editorial board and wrote a weekly column of architecture criticism for three decades. Architecture Here and There fights the style wars for classical architecture and against modern architecture, no holds barred.
History Press asked me to write and in August 2017 published my first book, "Lost Providence." I am now writing my second book.
My freelance writing on architecture and other topics addresses issues of design and culture locally and globally.
I am a member of the board of the New England chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, which bestowed an Arthur Ross Award on me in 2002.
I work from Providence, R.I., where I live with my wife Victoria, my son Billy and our cat Gato.
If you would like to employ my writing and editing to improve your work, please email me at my consultancy, dbrussat@gmail.com, or call 401.351.0457.
Testimonial: "Your work is so wonderful - you now enter my mind and write what I
would have written."
- Nikos Salingaros, mathematician at the University of Texas, architectural theorist and author of many books.
Architecture Here and There 
SOS! please help thé French People protect national Héritage! This is becoming worse than what I saw in Soviet Union… thé hole sites are threatened, not only Paris! Check out thé 5-storey parking garage thé Mayor of little medieval town Chinon wants to build at the foot of thé royal Fortress…please sign petition on AVAAZ!
LikeLike
Connor Moran’s proposal is elegant and very Parisian. Credit should also go to his thesis advisor, my Notre Dame colleague David Mayernik, and to Mary Campbell Gallagher, who introduced Connor to resources in Paris. I had the honor of teaching Connor in his design studio during his semester in Rome and approached him the following semester and suggested he consider a counter-proposal to one of the modernist projects in Paris as a thesis subject. I’m glad he took my advice!
LikeLike
Nothing was wrong with it, but it is gone. As I understand it, the SANAA proposal spent time in court as various parties sought to stop it. Demolition was blocked in, I believe, 2014 but that ruling was overruled last year, and photos indicate that a good deal of demolition has already happened.
LikeLike
What was wrong with the building they demolished? Looked fine to me.
LikeLike