Parc de la Villette, Paris

Bernard Tschumi designer J. Daniel Pugh LARC263 September 30, 2004 The Site Description Much like Seinfeld, the television show about nothing, the intentional design of Parc de la Villette was not to be a park in the traditional sense. The architecture of La Villette aims at meaning nothing and breaks with traditional architecture by encouraging conflict over synthesis, fragmentation over unity, madness and play over careful management. The history of the site is included by two strong elements. First, it was the former site of a slaughterhouse that employed more than 3,000 people. Second, two canals run through the site. The Ourcq canal supplied water to the city of Paris and the St. Denis canal was used to transport cargo and freight. The Parc de la Villette includes one of the large slaughterhouse buildings and both canals. Because of their inclusion, the human dynamics of these elements were not lost in the final design of the Parc.
Figure one: Slaughterhouse c.1920

Parc de la Villettes design is the opposite of the 19th century park in the city that Frederick Law Olmstead championed. Because the residents of a modern 21st century city are different from their 19th century counterparts, their parks should also be different. The idea of a city park as a naturalistic representation in the heart of the city does not necessarily satisfy the various needs of current city dwellers. Parisian city parks no longer serve as communal areas. Instead, they are used mostly by children and the elderly, and function as the meeting place the town square once provided. Paris is no longer organized around a traditional center but spreads out into the suburbs, causing the central focus to be diffused. Parc de la Villette is located on the edge of Paris on 125 acres in the middle of a semiindustrial, working class district that borders on the suburbs. It is situated in the northeast corner of the city, between two subway stations. The park is over one kilometer long and seven hundred meters wide, and encompasses a large Museum of Science and Industry, a City of Music, a Grande Halle and a hall for rock and roll concerts. Parc de la Villettes challenges are twofold. The first is to decentralize the city and create a second area of focus and activity, and the second is to supply additional culture to the citizenry of Paris. The Parc represents a new model for the 21st century city park in which program, form and ideology come together. Within the park three simultaneous operations are going on. The first is a series of events that encourage dreams and fantasies not normally found in traditional city parks. The second is a series of places where these fantasies can be

played out. And the third is the suggestio n of movement in space by the lines and curves that are built into the landscape. Parc de la Villette is thought of by its designer, Bernard Tuschumi, as a work in progress, an architectonic design that will never be finished. Because it is a living, breathing reflection of the people who use it, continuous change is fundamental, and parts of it can be taken down, changed and built again. The three systems that comprise the Parc consist of a system of surfaces, a system of lines, and a system of points. The surfaces of the park host activities that include game playing, exercising, entertainment, markets and more, and appropriate surfaces are used for each activity. Remaining surfaces are constructed of compacted earth and gravel and are more free and varied in form. The lines of the parc are supplied by a grid of whimsical Folies or follies, the orthogonal system that guides pedestrian movement and the Path of Thematic Gardens, the path that intersects the coordinate axes and provides unusual and unexpected encounters with nature. The north-south axis joins the two subway stations and the east-west axis joins Paris to the suburbs.
Figure two: three systems

The points are a grid system of Folies placed at 120 meter intervals that serve as a common denominator to the entire park. They are 10x10x10 meter cubes that can be changed to accommodate specific needs. The strict repetition of the Folies creates a recognizable symbol for the park. Each Folie functions as a marker and a unique space, an area for experimentation that is linked to a group or event. The Folies replace static, traditional park monuments and will be future reference points for emerging social and artistic change in an evolving society. The resulting grid presents an infinite field of intensities and extensions in and out of the Parc because there is no center of hierarchy.
Figure three: Foiles

The Parc de la Villettes conceptual framework allows for multiple combinations and substitutions within the built space. Something can easily be replaced or revised without damaging the spirit and identify of the Parc. The organizing structure of the interchangeability of objects, people and events allows for future artistic expression without the constraining hierarchies of traditional urban parks.

The city of Paris is composed of objects and spaces, continuity and discontinuity, and the Parc de le Villette provides a focal point for all types of expression and activity. It has the regularity of the grid and the flux of French arcades. Casual, directed movement through the parc can lead one to unexpected smaller spaces. The parcs design is based on the disjunctions and dissociations of life in modern Paris, not on the idealistic notion of bringing natur e to the masses. The character of the Parc de le Villette is like nothing done before, and it illustrates the concept that the interaction of thoughts and ideas are what make the design and function of a space successful, not the objects in the space.

Figure four: Plan view

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Barzilay, Marianne, Catherine Hayward, and Lucette Lombard-Valentino. LInvention du parc. Paris: Graphite Editions , 1984 Tschumi, Bernard. Cingram folie, le Parc de la Villette / Bernard Tschumi. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Architectural Press, 1987. Kipnis, Jeffrey and Thomas Leeser, eds. Chora L works: Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman. New York: Monacelli Press, 1997. Orlandini, Alain. Le parc de la Villette de Bernard Tschumi. Paris: Somogy, 2001.

FIGURE SOURCES
Figure one: Barzilay, Marianne, Catherine Hayward, and Lucette Lombard-Valentino. LInvention du parc. Paris: Graphite Editions, (1984) 10. Figure two: Tschumi, Bernard. Cingram folie, le Parc de la Villette / Bernard Tschumi. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Architectural Press, (1987) 3. Figure three: ---. Cingram folie, le Parc de la Villette / Bernard Tschumi. (1987) 19. Figure four: Orlandini, Alain. Le parc de la Villette de Bernard Tschumi. Paris: Somogy, (2001) 47. Watermark: Kipnis, Jeffrey and Thomas Leeser, eds. Chora L works: Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman. New York: Monacelli Press, (1997) 118-119.