Tschumi’s account of his competition-winning design (1982–83) for the Parc de la Villette: three independent systems (points, lines and surfaces) superimposed on the site without a governing hierarchy.
The competition for a park on the site of the old Paris slaughterhouses at La Villette asked for an “urban park for the twenty-first century”. Tschumi answered with a park conceived as a set of events rather than a picture: a grid of red follies at 120-metre intervals (the points), a pair of covered galleries crossing the site and a winding “cinematic promenade” through themed gardens (the lines), and large open lawns and gravel surfaces for games and gatherings (the surfaces).
Each system is complete in itself and collides with the others where they meet. The folies are variations on a 10.8-metre cube divided into a 3.6-metre grid, from which parts are removed and to which stairs, ramps, drums and canopies are added. The park, built from 1984, was presented at the Museum of Modern Art’s Deconstructivist Architecture exhibition in 1988.
The book, part by part
I Points, lines, surfaces
Three autonomous systems, superimposed.
Rules: Superimpose independent systems · Points: a folie every 120 metres · Lines: galleries and a cinematic promenade · Surfaces: room for what cannot be planned