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Sumit Singhal
Sumit Singhal loves modern architecture. He comes from a family of builders who have built more than 20 projects in the last ten years near Delhi in India. He has recently started writing about the architectural projects that catch his imagination. Cultural centre in Garges-lès-Gonesse, France by archi5March 9th, 2023 by Sumit Singhal
Article source: archi5 The city of Garges-lès-Gonesse had the ambition to enrich its public facilities with a new cultural centre that would reflect the image of a young and artistically creative city. The work brings together the various disciplines that make up the city’s cultural landscape. The aim was to stimulate cross-cutting activities between the arts and to encourage the opening up of culture from this new cultural centre. The project unfolds around the existing Lino Ventura space with a 250-seat auditorium, a 200-seat cinema, a conservatory and a media library, organised around a generous, bright and crossing reception area. The Lino Ventura space benefits from a central urban location, at the heart of the town’s road network and public transport system. The project is located at the crossroads of the two main roads running through the town, Avenue du Général Leclerc and Avenue du Général de Gaulle.  Image Courtesy © Sergio Grazia
 Image Courtesy © Sergio Grazia The cultural centre project completes the network of existing public facilities, mainly educational, the Simone de Beauvoir high school, the Henri Matisse college and the Paul Langevin primary schools. The green corridor bears witness to the former route of the abandoned A16 motorway, which extends along the entire western boundary of the plot. A real breathing space in a dense urban context, its physiognomy and its opportune position between the Fort de Stains to the north and the Parc de la Courneuve to the south, favours the attractiveness of the cultural centre. The green corridor anchors the project as a milestone and reveals it to visitors in a friendly and welcoming green setting. The project, through its clear layout, its simple, balanced volumes, establishes the urban coherence of the site in a symbiotic relationship with the park and the neighbouring facilities. The large volumes that open up and project towards the city express, in an iconic architectural language, the influence of the city’s culture towards new urban, social and artistic territories. A CULTURAL CENTRE THAT OPENS UP TO THE CITY The project extends the volume of the Lino Ventura auditorium towards the park in a cantilevered fashion, with the new auditorium next to it. The delivery areas, the storage and artist reception areas and the technical rooms are located between the two auditoriums, flanked on either side by the courtyard/garden passages. The sharing of these spaces for the two auditoriums optimises their use and facilitates the management of the technical teams. The common core also acts as an acoustic buffer between the two large volumes.  Image Courtesy © Sergio Grazia  Image Courtesy © Sergio Grazia The volumes of the cinema, the conservatory and the media library are organised in spokes with the volumetric ensemble of the auditorium and the Lino Ventura space as their centre of gravity. The large openings of two lateral wings, the conservatory to the south and the media library to the north, showcase their respective activities: dance and movement for one, knowledge and culture for the other. The hall unifies all the entities and stretches out in a taut curve under the auditorium’s overhang, highlighting the main access to the cultural centre. With its large windows, the boundary with the landscape is reduced to its strict minimum. The hall is generously lit, user-friendly, transparent, and offers wide panoramic views of the exterior. Two forecourts emerge between the incoming corners of the building, inviting visitors to wander between the abstract blocks that make up the structure. The western forecourt flares out under the suspended mass of the auditorium, and is diluted in the park. The northern forecourt nestles in the curved façade of the hall, between the Lino Ventura space and the media library. Organised in a radiating pattern around the preserved Lino Ventura space, the real cornerstone of the project, the cultural centre extends along the entire length of the site, delicately opening up to the inhabitants in a reassuring, fraternal gesture.  Image Courtesy © Sergio Grazia  Image Courtesy © Sergio Grazia PROJECT VOLUMETRY The project pays great attention to the clarity of its architecture and the coherence of its volumetric intention in relation to its functional organisation. One building equals one function. Each programmatic entity is easily identifiable and benefits from its own independent access from the hall with autonomous operation. Supervision is easy and noise pollution is controlled. This requirement for restraint in the service of a remarkable architectural gesture is also reflected in the choice of elementary and balanced volumes. The scales, the rigorous proportions and the behaviour of the facades are all instruments that give rhythm and guarantee pleasant variations in the facades. Sometimes anchored to the ground, sometimes suspended above the landscape, the building comes alive and dialogues in a coherent language. The hall runs under and between the masses, favouring transversality and connections. The large copper monoliths, with their telluric appearance, reinforce the iconic aspect of the place, like large totems erected in the territory.  Image Courtesy © Sergio Grazia  Image Courtesy © Sergio Grazia TRANSPARENCIES, WHAT CAN BE SEEN Between the large solid elements, the transparencies of the project slip and stand out. The long glass curtain wall of the hall allows perspectives to flow between the volumes to the Lino Ventura space. Visitors walk through a green landscape, dominated by the park to the west and punctuated by the two patios to the east. The dance rooms on the first floor of the conservatory are staged on the park. The dancers play with the vertical blades, suggesting the movements and artistic dynamics at work behind them. The wide succession of copper slats sequenced by the terraces and the dance halls levitating above the expanse of water encourages the discovery of the disciplines offered by the conservatory. On the opposite side of the site, the large openings of the media library’s spaces onto the park, dedicated to children and multimedia, resonate with the dance studios of the conservatory.  Image Courtesy © Sergio Grazia  Image Courtesy © Sergio Grazia In a belvedere above the main forecourt, the work space for the educational teams, organised as a coworking space, is turned towards the park at the heart of the project. The walls of the broadcasting spaces, such as the cinema and the auditorium, are opaque to meet the requirements of the programme. They allow for perfect concealment of the rooms they house. The result is a building with simple and monolithic forms, whose function gives it its identity. All the classrooms of the conservatory and the administration of the media library are protected from the sun by a natural copper facade that oxidises over time, perforated at 42% and functioning as moucharabiehs to improve the thermal comfort of the premises. Robust, fixed on a steel frame, they guarantee the privacy and security of the premises on the ground floor.  Image Courtesy © archi5  Image Courtesy © archi5  Image Courtesy © archi5  Image Courtesy © archi5
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Tags: France, Garges-lès-Gonesse Category: Cultural Center |
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