French Communist Party Headquarters

Commissioned by the PCF in 1965 and completed in 1980, the French Communist Party Headquarters is among Niemeyer's most formally inventive buildings outside Brazil. The project pairs a five-storey curvilinear office block — clad in a full-height glass curtain wall that follows a double curve — with a low, white domed conference room partially buried in the courtyard. The dome's interior is a dramatic single space with a circular ceiling oculus. The building was designed in collaboration with Jean Prouvé, who engineered the glass facade. Listed as a historic monument in 2007, it remains the PCF's active headquarters.