A different kind of FRAC Centre (Les Fonds R'gionaux d'Art Contemporain) opens September 14 in the historic city of Orl'ans, France'it is the first of the some two dozen regional cultural institutions to be devoted to architectural exhibitions as well as art.

While Rennes, the capital of France's Brittany region, does not make most travel guides' must-see lists, the university town of 200,000 still has its charms: crooked medieval streets lined with half-timbered buildings, stately 18th-century edifices, and cafés that spill out onto picturesque squares.

The new branch of the Louvre couldn't be more different from the museum's iconic Paris home.

If there is any corner of the world less in need of a new architectural icon, it's Menton, a lovely seaside hill town situated 2.5 miles from Italy on the French Riviera.

A circular building treated as a monolithic, self-contained volume can be unforgivingly oppressive.

Surrounded by hedgerows and overlooking Bellême Forest, in the cultivated countryside of Normandy’s Perche region, this cube-like house is set on one-third of a 492-foot-long plot of land—standing in an isolated residential area.

Since launching their eponymous Paris-based practice in 1992, Dominique Jakob and Brendan MacFarlane have produced a series of exuberant projects that wouldn’t look out of place in a sci-fi film.

Lens, a city of 250,000 in northern France, had a rough 20th century.