The all-metal building contains 2000 m2 of area where the wine will undergo a fermentation stage. Earlier, Nouvel had developed for the same customer a project for a wine warehouse with various accompanying premises, but this was not implemented. All this could have been nothing more than a minor detail in the creative biography of a prominent architect, if not for one circumstance: this project is part of the ambitious program of transforming Château la Costa into a popular cultural center with a significant architectural component.
This idea belongs to the famous Irish developer Paddy McKillen (Paddy McKillen). Back in the mid-2000s, he decided to combine two successful "pre-crisis" formulas for working with "celebrity" architects: "wine" architecture (a significant part of the most famous masters managed to work in this area, including many Pritzker Prize winners) and "architectural collection" (in the spirit of the Vitra campus - perhaps the earliest example of such an ensemble).
The master plan of the complex was developed by Tadao Ando, he also designed an art gallery, which is due to open next year. Renzo Piano and Norman Foster are also named among the project participants, but it is not clear whether this is true and what they are specifically tasked with creating. McKillen also added Frank Gehry to this list by auctioning his 2008 Serpentine Gallery summer pavilion: it was transported to France and assembled in a winery as a "music room" (meaning an open-air concert hall).
The theme of Chateau la Costa also surfaced at the current Venice Architecture Biennale: Junya Ishigami and So Fujimoto presented their projects of pavilions for this ensemble there, and Ishigami received the Golden Lion for his exposition (however, this prize can be considered as a consolation prize: his created from the thin woods, the installation was destroyed on the eve of the opening day by a cat that climbed into the Arsenal, and it was possible to restore it only four days later, when most of the journalists and famous guests had already left Venice; then, as reported, the object became the victim of an unwary cleaning lady).
In addition to architects, McKillen also "collects" sculptors: he bought the "spider" by Louise Bourgeois for the Château la Costa, and he plans to include works by Richard Serre and James Turrell.
