Architecture as Mise-En-Sequence
La Villette
Paris, France
1976
Gandelsonas
This project confronts the issues of history and historicism in relation to the design of urban form; it is thus a critical response to the urban design principles of the Modern Movement. Historicism is the mechanistic, arbitrary use of history, the paraphrase without transformation, the quotation out of context, the realistic replica and the picturesque kitsch.
We attempt neither to return to an idealized past nor to use all the historical examples of architecture we happen to like. We want to establish with the past a dialectical relationship in which the modern period is considered a part of history; we want to look at both the classical and the modern with the same critical eye.
Our project at La Villette is a critical reading of the relationship between urban structure and architecture. This reading implies the articulation between history and the subject (the creative subject, the subject of the unconscious). Reading the city—its public places, its built forms producing not only an architectural reading but also other cultural readings—allows our project to articulate with the cultural context of the city of Paris, with its history and the history of architecture, with conscious images and unconscious representations.
This reading of the cultural and historical determinations in the city, denied by the economicist and anti-historical approaches to urbanism, implies an understanding not only of the types of spaces and buildings but also of the symbolic performances of such types. In the process of reading and rewriting, a transformation takes place, generating new configurations. It is precisely through transformation that the necessary relationship between the old and the new, between history and subject, can be established.
Second, through typological articulation and transformation, types transform into each other and thus generate new spatial and typological conditions. This makes an architecture of sequence and juxtaposition rather than an architecture of geometry.
The built area is developed mostly to the north of the canal through a very dense fabric of streets, perimeter blocks, and squares related to the surrounding neighborhoods. The streets penetrate through the Grande Salle, which has been incorporated into the fabric, its carved center forming an open space. In this space, a shifted axis introduces the city grid and then continues through four doors in the Facade Building, which covers the Grande Salle and frames the square of La Villette on the edge of the canal.
The square of La Villette is enclosed on all sides in different forms addressing various conditions and articulating different possible sequences. On a platform in the center of this square there is a small group of courtyard houses that represent an idealization of their type; the group forms a monument to mass housing that makes La Villette architecture.
While nature penetrates the architecture on the urban side, architecture transforms nature on the park side. The Place de La Villette is related to the river edge by means of an arcade connecting towers, by its connection to a market place (which is a nodal point in the relation between north and south), and by the intersection of the two canals and the point at which the transformation of the housing type from fabric to building occurs.
The grid is modified when it crosses the Canal de L’Ourq. The movement towards the south side starts in an urban block transformed into a marketplace and then into buildings as objects. Residential buildings define the western edge of the project and incorporate both the water and the surrounding neighborhood into a series of plazas and squares.
The buildings are elements of the park—part arcade, part gate, part port—articulated with and through the public places they frame. Thus, although different in scale and character to the housing located on the north side, they are also a transformed type, the modernist slab, which has incorporated the structural aspects of public space. The edge defined by the buildings is a very important element in that it represents the relationship between the two grids, that of the project itself and that of the city, referring respectively to the new and the old.
The whole project is traversed by green spaces at the scale of buildings or even neighborhoods. The park itself has been conceived to function at the scale of the city. Louis-Pierre Baltard’s Grande Halle, incorporated into the park, establishes a transition between the urban zone and the park of the project. At the same time, it shifts the axis of the park and allows the articulation of the various directions involved in this project.
We attempt neither to return to an idealized past nor to use all the historical examples of architecture we happen to like. We want to establish with the past a dialectical relationship in which the modern period is considered a part of history; we want to look at both the classical and the modern with the same critical eye.
Our project at La Villette is a critical reading of the relationship between urban structure and architecture. This reading implies the articulation between history and the subject (the creative subject, the subject of the unconscious). Reading the city—its public places, its built forms producing not only an architectural reading but also other cultural readings—allows our project to articulate with the cultural context of the city of Paris, with its history and the history of architecture, with conscious images and unconscious representations.
This reading of the cultural and historical determinations in the city, denied by the economicist and anti-historical approaches to urbanism, implies an understanding not only of the types of spaces and buildings but also of the symbolic performances of such types. In the process of reading and rewriting, a transformation takes place, generating new configurations. It is precisely through transformation that the necessary relationship between the old and the new, between history and subject, can be established.
(read more)
This Notion of Reading Is Developed in Two Ways
First, public spaces are treated formally as positive spaces and not as leftover space between monumental buildings. Instead of considering the project as a set of buildings on a neutral plane, the project develops as a multiple sequence of public places, of transitions and articulations between open and closed, public and private spaces. Streets, squares, courtyards, parks, and doors designed at an urban scale traverse the built volume and link it to the surrounding neighborhoods and to the rest of the city. In this traversing, edges and elements of transition (such as doors, loggias, stairs, arcades) become very important in allowing for sequential articulation.Second, through typological articulation and transformation, types transform into each other and thus generate new spatial and typological conditions. This makes an architecture of sequence and juxtaposition rather than an architecture of geometry.
(read more)
Formal Configuration
This project creates a variety of zones rather than treating the built volume as a homogeneous totality. The project incorporates counterpoints, nuances, and rich modulations, which are the essence of spatial and symbolic experiences offered by the city through its multiplicity of places and parcours. The project is divided into two parts that oppose and relate to each other—a dense urban fabric and a park. A sequence of public places, penetrating through these parts, interrelates them. The two main elements of the program—the building and the park—are divided by the Canal de L’Ourq, which becomes a symbolic line between architecture and nature. The project is organized by a grid perpendicular to the canal; this grid is then modified by the forces of the city.The built area is developed mostly to the north of the canal through a very dense fabric of streets, perimeter blocks, and squares related to the surrounding neighborhoods. The streets penetrate through the Grande Salle, which has been incorporated into the fabric, its carved center forming an open space. In this space, a shifted axis introduces the city grid and then continues through four doors in the Facade Building, which covers the Grande Salle and frames the square of La Villette on the edge of the canal.
The square of La Villette is enclosed on all sides in different forms addressing various conditions and articulating different possible sequences. On a platform in the center of this square there is a small group of courtyard houses that represent an idealization of their type; the group forms a monument to mass housing that makes La Villette architecture.
While nature penetrates the architecture on the urban side, architecture transforms nature on the park side. The Place de La Villette is related to the river edge by means of an arcade connecting towers, by its connection to a market place (which is a nodal point in the relation between north and south), and by the intersection of the two canals and the point at which the transformation of the housing type from fabric to building occurs.
(read more)
Housing
The urban side, on the north, is organized with perimeter block housing. Two types of buildings have been used: the courtyard apartment building and the narrow apartment building. The former is a transformation of the French hotel type. While the front courtyard belongs to the individual building, the back garden, or courtyard, becomes the semipublic center of the block. The sequence from street to garden is preserved and transformed to address the more public nature of these spaces. The apartment building type is a transformation of the seventeenth-century Parisian apartment building. Its major public elements (the lobby and the stair) have been emphasized. They connect the street and the garden in a continuous sequence towards the private apartments.The grid is modified when it crosses the Canal de L’Ourq. The movement towards the south side starts in an urban block transformed into a marketplace and then into buildings as objects. Residential buildings define the western edge of the project and incorporate both the water and the surrounding neighborhood into a series of plazas and squares.
The buildings are elements of the park—part arcade, part gate, part port—articulated with and through the public places they frame. Thus, although different in scale and character to the housing located on the north side, they are also a transformed type, the modernist slab, which has incorporated the structural aspects of public space. The edge defined by the buildings is a very important element in that it represents the relationship between the two grids, that of the project itself and that of the city, referring respectively to the new and the old.
(read more)
The Canal
The Canal de L’Ourq dividing the north and south is treated as an urban architectural element, the usual role of water in European cities, and particularly in Paris. While the north embankment is framed by a built arcade linking the base of the towers, the south embankment is organized with green sloping grass framing the stairs, with a promenade through topiary trees, and with a continuous pergola. While the architecture of the north has been penetrated by elements of nature, such as the grand square, the nature of the south has been treated as an architectural element.(read more)
The Park
The park is modeled on a reading of the historical French gardens. A three-bay zone, accentuating the east-west axis and framed by a forest-like area, acts as a filter to the industrial area and Peripheric Boulevard. Each of these three bays is different. One is made up of water mirrors and is terminated by an existing neoclassic pavilion, which is replicated as an aviary. The center bay is formed by a fountain and lawn. The third is a formal garden with an axis perpendicular to the Canal de L’Ourq. From this garden springs a romantic garden that ends in a promenade made of topiaries, which connects the arts-and-crafts center to the amphitheater and is parallel to the continuous pergolas along the water. The existent bridges become part of the park. Stairs and sloped green grass connect the pergola level with the embankment below.The whole project is traversed by green spaces at the scale of buildings or even neighborhoods. The park itself has been conceived to function at the scale of the city. Louis-Pierre Baltard’s Grande Halle, incorporated into the park, establishes a transition between the urban zone and the park of the project. At the same time, it shifts the axis of the park and allows the articulation of the various directions involved in this project.