Every detail of the Cité is of a piece: The sustainable Frenchgrown oak is artfully unfinished to match the industrial age concrete, left bare to show off its pebbly handmade texture. The big quailevel deck is inset with hundreds of tiny LED lights, as is the roof, and long tubes of light follow the Plug Over’s curves. The carefully sourced green recurs—“a green that vibrates was very important,” says MacFarlane—not least on the roof, where it literally springs to life. “This building was once going to be demolished and made into a park,” MacFarlane explains, “hence the green and this floating park.” Celebrated landscape architect Michel Desvigne, who’s collaborated with the likes of Richard Rogers, Renzo Piano, and Jean Nouvel, planted “tundra and pampas grass, hairy on the edges, flat in the middle,” says MacFarlane. There are deck chairs, glassfronted “sky caves” for shops, and a restaurant.

But however great the building, what’s inside had better be good enough to draw the punters to the ugly, but nascently trendy, treizième, where branché youths enjoy the huge, squatlike artists’ studio collective, Les Frigos; the young-contemporary galleries of Rue Louise Weiss; and the vast MK2 movie multiplex, but otherwise it’s all a bit forlorn. Fashion students, of course, will be captive in the Cité in what MacFarlane calls their “visually porous school spaces”—the IFM’s three glass-walled stories on the east end—but fashion designers may also come, to show in the second floor exhibition hall. “A cocktail-sized space for defilés is very unusual in Paris where there are lots of huge spaces,” says MacFarlane. Meanwhile, prospective tenants for the many shops have had to prepare “concept files” showing how they’d use the space for something more arty than bald commerce. A sexy, snob collection of tastemaking brands are lined up—Silvera (contemporary furniture from big designers), Armand Hadida (L’Eclaireur fashion stores), and Ligne Roset are among those on board—and a whirlwind of exhibitions, fashion shows, theater, dance, and music performances are planned. There are also cafés, bars, and a TV studio.

“The idea was to create a synergy, a dialogue and kind of energy,” says MacFarlane. Touché! "Compass: Paris" originally appeared in the Fall 2008 issue of Culture+Travel. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Culture+Travel's Fall 2008 Table of Contents.