Looking magnificient

Costing 170 million euros, this construction project on the small Seine island of Seguin, west of the French capital near to Boulogne-Billancourt, has already won numerous awards for its bold visionary architecture. The futuristic 36,000 square metre building has an auditorium of 1,150 seats and a performance hall that can take up to 6,000 people. All kinds of music are expected to be played there. There are also rehearsal rooms for musicians, several recording studios, terraces and a restaurant. And from the fourth floor, there is a beautiful panoramic view of the surrounding area.
At the MIPIM exhibition in Cannes, the construction project won the Best Futura Project Award for 2015, and one year prior to this was recognized with the Biodiversity Label. The planning and execution of this major project was a joint effort between the Departement Hautsde- Seine and the “Group Tempo Île Seguin” consortium, made up of the companies Bouygues Construction, Sodexo, OFI Infravia and the French state television company TF1. The architecture of La Seine Musicale is reminiscent of a cruise ship. It was designed by Frenchman Jean de Gastines and Japanese star architect Shigeru Ban, master builders who were also responsible for the Centre Pompidou in Metz. The concept includes self-sufficiency in energy supply: the dome-shaped glass façade in the centre of the building harnesses the sun’s rays and a photovoltaic sail moves in synchronisation with the sun’s movement across the sky. An overhead view of the glass roof gives the impression of a bird’s nest, blending perfectly with the natural environment of the island and the greenery of the building’s roof. In contrast to this centrepiece of the construction, the building is enveloped by an imposing façade of impressive aesthetic elegance based on a symbiosis of glass and fair-faced concrete.

High-specification fair-faced concrete façade
Constructing a fair-faced concrete façade is not easy. Optical impairments such as porosities, blow holes, coloration irregularities, shading and clouding phenomena are common and tend to disrupt the overall result. As the quality of the concrete is of vital importance to the appearance of La Seine Musicale, the client and the planning engineers decided to adopt a façade upgrade system, opting for MC’s products and expertise.

Strong performance

In January 2017, the contractor Bouygues Construction had a number of test surfaces prepared by various bidders. As the music venue was due to open in just three months’ time, the solution had to be as quick as it was reliable, and it was the product systems from MC that ultimately won the day. The MC system consisted of a fine concrete cosmetic filler from the Emcefix family, the pigmented concrete coating Repacryl and the transparent graffiti protection coating MC-Color Proof vision. It was applied within the shortest time thanks to the efforts of the specialist applicator – Contreat of Belgium – easily beating the competition. Following the success of the test surface, work was begun on the project proper and was soon moving along quickly. Within just eight weeks, over 9,000 square metres of concrete surface had been reprofiled, coated and protected.

Curtain up for Emcefix, Repacryl and MC-Color
Following expert preparation of the substrate, the first phase involved the correction of porosities, blow holes and formwork joints, together with general deviations. This was done using the high-quality concrete cosmetic system Emcefix-Spachtel F, mixed from the three colours – white, grey and anthracite – in order to achieve the required concrete shade. The fair-faced surface was further upgraded with Repacryl to ensure a homogeneous and high-quality finish across the entire area. Here, MC worked with Contreat to develop a special mixture of three Repacryl colours: grey, concrete grey and light grey. In addition to offering excellent aesthetics, the upgraded concrete surfaces are UVstable, weather-resistant and colourfast. The concrete surfaces were then coated with the transparent graffiti protection MC-Color Proof vision up to a height of 3 metres, delivering around 3,000 square metres of coverage. This makes the façade easy to clean even for stubborn graffiti – particularly beneficial for buildings accessible to the public.

MC’s final crescendo
Finally, around 150 square metres of floor surface in the entrance area of the building complex were coated with MC-Floor TopSpeed. The pigmented, fast-setting roller coating is based on innovative speciality resins that reliably protect the floor. Not only does this deliver an excellent level of scratch and mechanical resistance, it also ensures a long service lifetime and a high-quality finish.
Looking magnificent – both inside and out – this remarkable addition to Paris’ skyline opened at the end of April 2017 with a concert by Bob Dylan.