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LE FRESNOY MEDIATEQUE

• Tourcoing, France
• Complete
• 100,000 Square Feet
• Sponsor: The National Studio for Contemporary Arts
• Bernard Tschumi Architects. Douglas Gauthier, Project Architect; Francois Gillet, Tomasz Kowalski, Yannis Aesopos, Henning Erhardt, Mark Haukos, Francois Erhel, Vérnique Desharriéres, Vincent Thevenon
• Tetraserf, Paul Huchard, Louis Choulet, Echologos, Ursula Kurz

Le Fresnoy Film School and Mediateque is a state of the art school, studio, digital laboratory, and library for film students and industry professionals. The building, which centers on the concept of the “in-between,” combines a 1920s building with a contemporary structure with no nostalgic preference for history and no progressive one for modernity: the two pieces are entirely intertwined to become a new mega structure. The old structure is literally wrapped by a new roof and the resulting building gives the impression of movement and circulation. The building often seems to be created out of staircases, ramps and catwalks – a performative construction that communicates exactly its role as a space of sophisticated and experimental mechanical systems.

The north face of the mega structure is wrapped in the same language and material of the roof. As such, the project questions the need for normative hierarchies of wall, floor and roof and provides another architecture and space between the multiple layers of building, roofs, catwalks, trusses and skylights. These spaces are populated with cafes, bleachers for projecting and watching movies, over-scaled spiral stairs, and entry ramps marked by a monumental ‘Eisenstien stair’ of steps and bleachers with an entropic dissolve of metal mesh with a moiré graphic reading Le Fresnoy.

All content © 2011 GAuthier Architect P.C.