Early Modern · Architecture

Maison de la Radio

Paris

Maison de la Radio et de la Musique, also called Maison de la Radio and sometimes maison ronde, is a circular broadcasting house designed by architect Henry Bernard. Built to accommodate French public radio-television, it is located at 116 avenue du Président-Kennedy in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. The building has a circumference of 500 meters and a central tower 30 meters high. It contains 1,000,000 documents and 100,000 recordings. The site was developed in the 1950s after the State acquired land on the Seine riverbank in 1952, following earlier uses including a gas factory and a stadium. Henry Bernard won the architectural competition with a circular design surrounding a central tower. Inaugurated on December 22, 1963, it served as the headquarters of RTF and then ORTF before becoming the headquarters of Radio France in 1975. It was registered as a historic monument in 2018 and officially named Maison de la Radio et de la Musique on June 17, 2020.

Map showing the location of Maison de la Radio in Paris
Location of Maison de la Radio in Paris

Nearby Objects

Architecture and Institutional Role

The Maison de la Radio et de la Musique, also known as Maison de la Radio and sometimes maison ronde, is a circular building designed by architect Henry Bernard. It was built to accommodate French public radio and television, and its form is marked by a circumference of 500 meters and a central tower 30 meters high. The building is located at 116 avenue du President-Kennedy in the 16th arrondissement of Paris.

Over time, the building has served several major broadcasting institutions. It has been the headquarters of Radio France since 1975. From 1975 to 1998, it also housed FR3 and France 3, and from 1987 to 2013 it was the headquarters of Radio France Internationale. The building contains a large documentary and sound archive, with 1,000,000 documents and 100,000 recordings.

The building has also had several official names. It was previously called Maison de la RTF and Maison de Radio France before being officially named Maison de la Radio et de la Musique on June 17, 2020. In 2018, it was registered as a historic monument, reflecting its recognized heritage status.

Planning and Construction

The history of the Maison de la Radio is linked to the construction of a building for radio-television services in the 1950s. In 1952, the State acquired land on the Seine riverbank that had previously held a gas factory until 1928 and later a stadium. The site was first considered for quai Branly, but the Paris council ultimately ceded to the State a 42,000 square meter plot at 116 quai de Passy. A competition was launched for the architectural project, and Henry Bernard won with a circular design organized around a central tower 90 meters high.

From Broadcasting Center to Historic Landmark

The location of the Maison de la Radio was chosen to centralize the installations of Radiodiffusion-television francaise, with good transport access and a distance from the metro. It was inaugurated on December 22, 1963 by Charles de Gaulle, in the presence of Andre Malraux. The building first served as the headquarters of RTF from 1963 to 1964, then as the headquarters of ORTF until October 5, 1974. It housed the direction and services of ORTF, its radio studios, and auditoriums that were used as television studios.

After the split of ORTF on January 6, 1975, the building was assigned to Radio France and renamed Maison de Radio France. It also housed the national company FR3 until its transfer to France Televisions in 1998. The 50th anniversary of Maison de Radio France was celebrated on December 22, 2013, with a speech by the French president and a show featuring Eddy Mitchell.

The building was affected by a serious fire on October 21, 2014, which damaged the seventh and eighth floors near porte F during renovation work. Radio France programs were suspended for nearly two hours during the evacuation. On March 28, 2019, an official order confirmed the partial registration of the building as a historic monument. In 2020, Radio France decided to use the SMPTE 2110 standard for fully network IP-based content broadcasting. The Maison de la Radio was closed to the public from October 31, 2020 to May 19, 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic in France.

Architecture and Technical Facilities

The Maison de la Radio is organized around a building shaped as a crown with a circumference of 500 meters and a central rectangular tower of unspecified height. This form later inspired successive Radio France logos, which were nicknamed Poele a frire. The building houses the central services of Radio France, the services of its stations, and studios for RFI. It also contained a museum devoted to broadcasting, television, and sound recording techniques until 2007.

The complex includes about sixty recording studios, as well as two television studios, numbered 101 and 102. Studio 102 was used for many popular programs, including Cadence 3, Ca se discute, and the early 2000s version of C'est mon choix. An auditorium now stands on the former site of studios 102 and 103, while renovated studio 104 contains the symphonic concert hall known as the salle Olivier Messiaen.

The building is also notable for its technical infrastructure. Since construction, it has used geothermal energy from a 580-meter deep borehole for heating, drawing water at 25 C from the Albien basin. The same system supplies air conditioning for the radio and television studios in the petite couronne before the water is discharged into public sewers at 17 C. It is also one of the few Parisian buildings with a nuclear shelter, alongside the Elysee Palace and other landmarks.

Rehabilitation and Safety Upgrades

In 2003, the central tower of the Maison de la Radio received an evacuation order from the Prefect of Police of Paris because the building did not comply with fire safety rules. A security commission report that same year stated that the structures had insufficient fire resistance, and the building was ordered to meet fire safety standards under threat of immediate closure. During this period, several solutions were considered, including relocating public radio stations to another site, and even reselling or repurposing the building for other state services after renovation. Possible future tenants mentioned included the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Paris High Court. Relocation was seen as less costly than renovation if Radio France services had to remain in operation during the works. In 2005, however, the decision was made to keep the premises and carry out the work in phases, with reinstallation afterward, in order to avoid difficult relocation. Architecture-studio was assigned overall project management, Changement a vue handled scenography, and Nagata Acoustics together with Lamoureux were responsible for the acoustics of the studios and concert halls. The rehabilitation also included asbestos removal, fire safety upgrades throughout the building, construction of a new symphony concert hall called the Auditorium de Radio France, an underground parking lot, and gardens replacing the surface parking area.

Rehabilitation and Public Reopening

After nine years of work, Maison de Radio France reopened to the public on an unspecified date. The rehabilitation also saw France Inter reintegrate its studios, while the building began recording many public broadcasts and scheduling concerts for evenings, daytime, and young audiences from the reopening date. The renewed venue has since hosted major cultural events such as European Heritage Days and the International Contemporary Art Fair.

A major milestone was the inauguration of the Auditorium de Radio France on December 14, 2014. The opening event included a concert by the Orchestre national de France and the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France. The auditorium organ, built by the Gerhard Grenzing manufacture, features four keyboards and a pedalboard, and was inaugurated after final tuning and harmonization on an unspecified date.

The rehabilitation also incorporated a section of the Berlin Wall, gifted by Deutschlandradio and installed in the building's gardens on the Seine side since 2009. In addition, the building offers monthly public 3D sound listening experiences.

Renovation and Financial Oversight

Discussions on renovation work at Maison de la Radio began in 2005. The project was first planned to start in early 2006, with a duration of six years and an estimated cost of about 240 million euros. In practice, renovations only began in 2008, with a revised budget and an expected duration of eight years. The project later drew attention for its rising costs: in 2014, deputy Martine Martinel estimated the renovation at 584 million euros. In 2015, the Cour des comptes highlighted a financial overrun affecting company accounts, and in 2019 it noted additional risks and uncertainties linked to the project. The official completion of the renovations was eventually announced with a budget of 493 million euros.