bernard tschumi

Bernard Tschumi

Architectural Design Theory.

Kartik Garg

Bernard TschumiBernard Tschumi is widely recognized as one of today’s foremost architects. First known as a theorist,

In the 1970s he taught at the Architectural Association school in London and during this period he developed the ‘strategy of disjunctions’, a theory based on his belief that contemporary culture and architecture were best expressed by fragmentation as opposed to the classical ideal of unity.

 Tschumi often references other disciplines in his work, such as literature and film, proving that architecture must participate in culture’s polemics and question its foundations. 

Theory

Bernard commonly associated with deconstructivism.

In 1970 Tschumi has argued that there is no fixed relationship between architectural form and the events that take place within it.

According to him Architecture’s role is not to express an extant social structure , but to function as a tool for questioning that structure and revise it.

Architecture by nature is fundamentally useless, setting it apart from building.

Glass video gallery-1990

The video gallery was the first work to deal with the concept of the envelope. It is about the movement of the body as it travels through the exhibition space and about the enclosure, which is made entirely out of glass held by clips, including its vertical supports and horizontal beams.

Glass video gallery

 The resulting structure gives priority to the image. The monitors inside provide unstable facades, while the glass reflections create mirages that suggest limitless space. At night, the space becomes an ensemble of mirrors and reflections

Acropolis museum-2001-2009 Located at the foot of the

Acropolis, the site confronted with sensitive archeological excavations, the presence of the contemporary city and its street grid, and the Parthenon itself.

Acropolis museum

Combined with a hot climate in an earthquake region, these conditions moved us to design a simple and precise museum with the mathematical and conceptual clarity of ancient Greece.

Acropolis museum-section and views

Parc de la Villette- 1982-1998 During the early 1980s, after President

Mitterand took office, Paris was undergoing an urban redevelopment as part of city beautification, as well as making Paris a more tourist influenced city. In 1982-3, the Parc de la Villette competition was organized to redevelop the abandoned land from the meat market and slaughterhouses that dated back to 1860

 La Villette has become known as an unprecedented type of park, one based on “culture” rather than “nature.”

 Unlike other entries in the competition, Tschumi did not design the park in a traditional mindset where landscape and nature are the predominant forces behind the design [i.e. Central Park].  Rather he envisioned Parc de la Villette as a place of culture where natural and artificial [man-made] are forced together into a state of constant reconfiguration and discovery.

Parc de la Villette A system of dispersed “points”—the red

enameled steel folies that support different cultural and leisure activities—is superimposed on a system of lines that emphasizes movement through the park

La Villette could be conceived of as one of the largest buildings ever constructed — a discontinuous building but a single structure nevertheless, overlapping the site’s existing features and articulating new activities

It opposes the landscape notion of Olmstead, widespread during the 19th century, that “in the park, the city is not supposed to exist.”

Instead, it proposes a social and cultural park with activities that include workshops, gymnasium and bath facilities, playgrounds, exhibitions, concerts, science experiments, games and competitions

Parc de la VilletteHe designed a number of small experimental constructions that he called ‘follies’, playing on the double meaning of the French word folie as a state of mental imbalance into the pavilion.