Un monastère au coeur de la ville Part 2 Project 2005 Thomas Elefteriou Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Paris-la-Villette Paris | France The project consists of setting up a Cistercian monastery in the heart of a city, Paris, an unusual location for such a building, and has to achieve a successful balance between the project in itself and its urban surroundings. It comprises two parts: monastic and guest quarters.The monastery is governed by a “design form” stemming from models and a holy spirit. Based on this, one had to move back and forth between non-measurable and measurable to give forms and dimensions to this piece of architecture so as to enhance its qualities in terms of lighting, materials and spatiality. This work allows to confront an utopia – the monastery – with an urban area and also a theoretical and historical model - the saint Gall model – to our time.The time frame during which this work was completed gave the opportunity to take into consideration various perspectives – architectural, construction, urban - and various levels : theoretical, material, spiritual…Such a level of thoroughness is quite rare for a final project and it is with great pleasure that I worked on it.