National Studio for the Contemporary ArtsTourcoing,France
LeFresnoyArtCenterfor multimedia art-art crossovers, such as a video artist who is also a musician, a musician who is also a painter. On the site there was a building that was supposed to be completely razed because it was in very bad condition, but inside it there were extraordinary spaces which were large enough to make the project much better than the budget would allow for the program. We decided to keep those spaces and to create an umbrella over them that would keep the rain out. We could avoid repairing the roofs while making room for the ducts, electrical, and air conditioning, allowing them to be taken down to the existing buildings below. What became really interesting about this project was that we didn’t have to talk about form. and style. We also designed it in a time when people were debating whether one had to be a historicist to be historical, contextual or not. But I thought this was a ridiculous debate. Somehow the juxtaposition of the old and new created an in-between space between the new roof and the old roof, where all the circulation and technical functions could be placed. The circulation itself was a way to activate this in-between space.
The Fresnoy site is exceptional because it integrates the buildings of an old leisure complex of the twenties that included cinema, ballroom dancing, skating, horseback riding and other activities. The artistic and pedagogical project is unique and absolutely innovative, the architectural project has to be equally innovative. Through combinations of old and new, development and production, artists and the general public, the building’s image will incorporate a model dimension.
Conceptually, we see the project as a succession of boxes inside a box.
First is the rectangular solid of modernity, ultratechnological, whose north side is closed. The other sides remain open and provide a view of the old and new buildings. The upper horizontal surface is a rectangle of approximately eighty by one hundred meters pierced with large openings and comprising, in its structure, all of the technical ductwork for heating, ventilation and air-conditioning, the vertical branches of which extend down into the spaces they serve.
Under the large electronic roof are the boxes of the existing building, most hereafter sheltered from the bad weather. The only parts demolished were a strip of the north façade and a construction situated in the southeast corner of the site ( old technical spaces and keepers’ quarters ) whose ruinous condition did not justify a restoration. We replaced these volumes and developed a new architectural and functional vocabulary ( corrugated steel façade in the north and curtain wall facades in the south ) that permits us, among other things, to give a resolutely contemporary and transparent image to the entrance area and the main façade of the building. At the same time, we conceived the new facilities located in the existing volumes as technically autonomous boxes while maintaining the fluidity of the Fresnoy spaces. A zone of economic activity (ZAE, or commercial space) is integrated into the project and becomes the equivalent of a fourth hall, in the south end of the existing vaulted hall. An underground parking lot is to be provided under the ZAE and the school/administrative offices.
We then developed the “in-between”, the space between the new steel roof and the old tile roofs. Large horizontal windows, covered with transparent sheets of polycarbonate in the form. of clouds, create an underside of the roof flooded with light and cut through by a transversal corresponding to the project’s north-south axis. A large landscaped terrace in front of the bar/restaurant profits from direct access; through the grand stair, to the garden.
If the new roof acts as the project’s common denominator (a large screen-umbrella), we also sought to accelerate the probability of chance events by combining diverse elements (the meeting of umbrella and sewing machine on the dissecting table), juxtaposing great roof, school/research laboratory and the old Fresnoy, place of spectacle.
The whole is precise and rational in its conception, varied and poetic in its spatial richness. The large steel roof with its clouds of light floats above the old tile roofs. It becomes a new plane of reference (artifi-ciel in French). This large roof that responds to climate, energy and information needs also generates a new type of space-the in-between.
