the venue

This building with its remarkable architecture was inaugurated in 2016. The building, measuring 2900m² in all, consists of the former Banque de France and a contemporary extension housing 1000m² of exhibition spaces: Le Plateau on the ground floor with a surface of 650 m² and the Galerie, on the first floor with a surface of 300m².

The architectural work by the Moatti –Rivière Agency is in itself the expression of all the ambitions of an avant-garde project. These large planes set in the town turn it into “a silent abstraction ready to receive all images” (Alain Moatti).

The symbolism of the forms adopted from graphic design media in the architecture of the centre national du graphisme and the exhibition space offered to the town make it a very special and distinctive place.

The architecture of le Signe adopts the typologies from the world of graphic design, the objects and media it hosts: posters, sheets of paper, pages, screens, panels…

The large planes are made of stone and compose the walls and rooftops of le Signe. Their thinness makes them abstract. They are made of 12 cm thick panels: stone-facing and a honeycomb aluminium core. The innovative material offers at the same time finesse and rigidity.

Each large plane resumes the scale of the neighbouring houses in Chaumont. The superposed or juxtaposed planes come together or go apart. Large window panes are installed between them. Stone and glass make up simple or complex unities so as to reply to their different roles of the façades in the street.