I will speak about two high schools, one is a School of Dance for the Opera of Paris which is facing a park in Nanterre near Paris; and the other is the National School of Music in La Villette which is the first part of what has been called City of Music, and the second part still under construction is devoted to the public. About the schools, there is a continuity of preoccupation between the organisation of the plan of these buildings, and it's interesting also to connect some projects before like Rue des Hautes Formes, one of my first important projects. There is a sub-division of the project: it is divided in different parts, it appears like each part has its own integrity, one from the other, but the whole is making something working together. So for this project of the Hautes Formes - I made that in 1975 - my problem was how we can build contemporary buildings and bring some quality of the outside which was completely forgotten in Modern architecture of the 60s for instance. Outside is this intermediate space that I try to create and which was existing with places and streets. So this question of the outside space which is the common space of everybody: when you are living in an apartment, you are not living only inside but you are living with the light and the view, and the light and the view from outside is coming from a certain space. When you choose the place for living in any city, of course you will be looking which light you get and which view you get. It will be your connection with the city and the population and the air and the sky. This conduced me to work strongly on this idea of the outside space. Because we are in the city, it's not a natural space, it's not fantastic open space with trees and clouds, it's a rather integrated and little space, and we must be able to make from this space something really interesting and beautiful. And it's coming from the proportion; it's coming from the light of this.

So in the Hautes Formes you can see the space which is clearly readable like a street, a tiny street, but I avoid anything like the old street, which means I avoid the continuity of two walls because it's evidently difficult for shadow, strong shadow and for proximity of facing apartments, and people would not accept that. It's interesting to think that people accept that in Rue de Seine in old Paris and they would not accept that in modern construction. But it's possible to have buildings very close together (like I made that like 6 - 7 metres) it's possible and it creates a tension very interesting. It gives a possibility to reach a certain density also. So in the rue des Hautes Formes I divided several buildings, I have this volume of a street but arriving of light from everywhere, so it's the situation of difficult little places. No one of these courtyards is closed, all of them they are strong vertical openings to the light and to the other part of the neighbourhood. So it's not claustrophobic. It's very important for me. I call that urban window. When you are in the place you don't feel that there are 210 apartments there. You forget it because I worked on some walls very quiet and some have most of the windows, conserving light and view.