French practice Antonio Virga Architecte has used perforated brickwork and gold metal to wrap a cinema building in Cahors, France, which filters light onto the surrounding public square at night.
Antonio Virga Architecte's aim for the building, named Cinema Le Grand Palais, was to reunite a complex of historic buildings originally used as a convent and then a military base ? the east wing of which burned down in 1943.
The project is shortlisted in the civic building category of Dezeen Awards 2021.
Antonio Virga Architecte designed the Cinema Le Grand Palais. Photo is by Pierre Lasvenes
"In recent years the space between the buildings, poorly defined, was used as a parking lot," described the Paris-based practice. "With the [cinema], the basis of our project was to find the lost urban city that the site once had or could have," it explained. "The architecture of the cinema reaches out to old Cahors, to the history of the square and to the lost concept of old monumental movie theatres."
The brick box resembles surrounding buildings
The seven-screen Cinema Le Grand Palais, which also includes a museum space, is designed as a blank, pale brick box.
It is an almost uncanny copy of the surrounding 19th-century blocks, echoing their height and roof shapes but with bold golden doors and no windows. 
One block has a brick facade
"It was important to have a timeless architectural expression," explained the studio.
"We wanted something t...