Parc de la Villette

Brenard Tchumi’s Parc de la Villette

Brenard Tschumi is an impressive architect that designed all of his buildings to prove some sort of point. The majority of his buildings revolved around his theory that without events, actions, or activity there wouldn’t be any architecture. So, with that thought in mind he would design spaces that would focus on potential events that would occur on the inside or around the building. But along with his various other theories is one of his most famous which proclaims that red is not a color. Tschumi’s red is not a color theory derived from the fact hat he uses mostly natural color sand tones in his projects. He started saying that red was not a color as a way to be provocative. Because as he saw it if he used red in every building then he would begin to lose clients. He also began using the stance “red is not a color” because people kept asking him why he didn’t use another color like yellow or orange for the folies. And since then he has been adamant on his stance because in his view natural colors are all a building needs instead of bold flashy colors like red, orange or yellow. And that’s because he believes there are other things more important to a building than the colors used for it. When it comes to the Parc de la Villette the follies are organized into a grid in order to institute a regularity in the parc. The Folies are also arranged in a grid to act as points of reference as a guide for visitors to the parc. The Folie I chose, Folie L8 which is also called the Folie Theatre Paris Villette. Is an entrance point for the grand hall. The Follie helps make the Entrance stand out while also offering something interesting for admirers of art and architecture to look at. What makes this folie unique is the giant cube adorning the front of it along with it’s interaction with the outside roof of the grand hall. The roof intersects the folie without causing any interruption while also drawing viewers eyes upward towards not just the unique roof structure but also the top of the folie where the cube resides. The folie I chose very much resembles Tschumi’s interpretation of point-like activities. This folie closely resembles the grid system in its own personal structure. The grid is mimicked closely by the two metal columns with two metal beams intersecting them. Because of this sense of repetition with the four intersecting parts of the beams and columns, it very closely relates to the grid set up of the parc. When it comes to designing a parc of my own I think I would prefer to keep the grid system. The grid system is an intelligent way of offering waypoints for visitors to keep track of where they are. Not only that but the deconstructionism in itself was a marvelous way of making sure that there was something available for everyone. The one thing I’d change is I’d want more of an incorporation of nature in the follies to sort of show that man made creations and natural creations can coincide with one another.