Do not compose the park as one picture: lay down independent systems (points, lines and surfaces), each complete in itself, one over another, and let them collide where they meet.
Lines: galleries and a cinematic promenade
Cross the park with two straight covered galleries at right angles, joining its gates and landmarks, and wind a promenade through it like a film strip, linking a sequence of themed gardens.
One gallery runs along the Canal de l’Ourcq, the other from the southern gate by the Grande Halle to the northern gate by the Cité des Sciences. The promenade, by contrast, meanders; Tschumi compared it to the frames of a film, each garden a scene.
Related rules
Set a red folie at every intersection of a 120-metre grid across the whole site; make each a 10.8-metre cube on a 3.6-metre grid, then subtract parts and add stairs, ramps, drums and canopies so that no two are alike.
grid 120 m · cube 10.8 m = 3 × 3.6 m
Leave large open surfaces (lawns and gravel) for games, crowds, markets and whatever the city brings, defined only by their shape.
Cite this page Chris Paton, “Lines: galleries and a cinematic promenade”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/villette-lines. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.