Dillinger heavy plate for the
Le Monde new headquarters in Paris

Dillinger steel supports the load-bearing structure of this master work which perfectly combines avant-garde design and durability.

When urban development plans force you to design a futuristic building…

Located near the Austerlitz rail station on a plot of land composed of three giant slabs covering the railway tracks, the new headquarters of the French newspaper Le Monde does not go unnoticed with its spherical and dynamic shapes. In fact, the architects in charge of the project proposed the ideal solution to bypass the local urban development plan which required the construction of two buildings. Since the central slab was not constructible, they had the idea of designing a bridge-like building that crosses over the entire area, resulting in a real masterpiece which consists in the creation of a metal structure comparable to that of a footbridge, from which metal and concrete floors are suspended.

Symbolic, aesthetic, informative and sustainable

The arch of this seven-storey building (137 m long and 37 m high) blends technology and nature with the presence of green spaces and LED lamps all over its surface, evoking, according to its architects, a continual flow of information, like clouds or stars moving across the sky. The façade of the building is covered with a matrix of glass pixels with varying degrees of transparency, translucency and opacity. “The intention is that the façade gives the building a homogenous character when viewed from distance, but at the same time reveals a greater level of complexity as the view approaches – like headlines and detailed content in a news story. The façade patterns are intended to represent the building as a complete volume, while the distorted pixel map creates a rich tapestry from inside and out”, says the designer architect. The roof is equipped with photovoltaic panels and a rainwater collection system.

Dillinger steel above standard

For the steel framework of this extraordinary project, Dillinger supplied more than 1,000 t of heavy plate in thicknesses from 15 to 140 mm in the grades S355J2+N, S355N, S460M and S460ML. Hereby, Dillinger was once again above standard – although the EN 10025-4 standard in force at the time only defined plate thicknesses of up to 120 mm, our customer relied on the Dillinger quality and used the higher-strength structural steel S460ML above the standard up to a thickness of 140 mm.