BERNARD TSCHUMI: ARCHITECTURE: CONCEPT & NOTATION / SWISS ARCHITECTURE MUSEUM

From 09/05/2015 to 23/08/2015, the S AM Swiss Architecture Museum presents the exhibition “Bernard Tschumi. Architecture: Concept & Notation”. The motto for the S AM summer exhibitions is “history and the present”. The Bernard Tschumi retrospective fits into this sequence because it focuses on the architect`s early theoretical works from the seventies and eighties, and on this basis it provides access to Tschumi`s built oeuvre, ranging from the eighties to the present day.

 

In “Bernard Tschumi. Architecture: Concept & Notation”, S AM presents Switzerland`s first comprehensive overview of Tschumi`s work. Even though Switzerland`s Bernard Tschumi has now been able to realise four projects in this country, he has been rather marginalised, if not ignored, in Swiss architectural discourse, quite unlike in the French-speaking world and the Anglo-American domain. Thus, S AM is making it possible to become well acquainted with one of the most important contemporary theorists.

The exhibition at S AM is divided into five sections, which visitors pass through, one after the other. In these sections, the core concepts of Tschumian thinking are demonstrated, while at the same time the architect`s most important structures and projects, in latent chronological order, are linked with these concepts.

 

Tschumi does not define architecture in terms of form, but as a space for events. For these, he developed notations in early experimental projects, inspired by cinematic motion scenarios and montage techniques. This engagement

culminates in his first major architectural project, Parc de la Villette in Paris (competition winner in 1983), with a structure developed from an overlaying of grids composed of points and lines, as well as event spaces. The striking red pavilions are reminiscent of Russian constructivism; Parc de la Villette is considered one of the key architectural deconstructivist works.

 

In the eighties and early nineties, Tschumi intensely addressed the issue of how structurally adequate forms can be found for heterogeneous usage plans and unforeseeable events. One example of this is the media centre Le Fresnoy in

Tourcoing: stairs, walkways and platforms were inserted between the existing hall roofs and a new roof structure, as informally utilisable spaces for movement.

 

Since the eighties, Tschumi has removed the term “facade” from his vocabulary. Instead, he speaks of spatial envelopes that provide space for events. The concept of the vector represents movement and usage in the interior. The dichotomy of vectors and envelopes characterises projects like the Vacheron Constantin manufacturing centre in Geneva.

 

Tschumi is critical of contextual architecture that primarily orients itself towards what exists in the surroundings. Instead, he develops strategies of reciprocal referencing between building, content and surroundings, as expressed in the Acropolis Museum in Athens, for instance.

 

With Bernard Tschumi, formal issues are never understood in an autonomous sense, but in accordance with concepts that serve as a basis for the structures. Form and concept define each other in interplay. From Parc de la Villette, the path leads to the new Paris zoo.