Initially known as a theorist exploring the spatial-political implications of the May 1968 uprisings, Bernard Tschumi emerged as an architect of international repute in the 1980s with his Parc de la Villette, a 125-acre cultural park located in northeastern Paris. His buildings and design theory famously draw on an array of disciplines, such as literature, cinema and philosophy. All aspects of the man and his work are examined in
Bernard Tschumi, published to accompany a landmark retrospective at the Centre Pompidou. This volume is the most complete and authoritative of any yet published on the celebrated architect: no mere reference book, it boasts a wide selection of previously unpublished designs for cities as varied as Santo Domingo and Dubai, accompanied by the original commissioning plans, sketches and models. Concise case studies complement the projects discussed, walking the reader through the rationale of each design. Essays by Frédéric Migayrou, the head of the Centre Pompidou architecture and design department, give insight into Tschumi's thinking; he unfolds and explores conceptual questions of design through the lenses of film, literature, visual art and philosophy, particularly deconstruction. Abstract theory and concrete design intermingle in Tschumi's body of work, as they do in this volume, to produce the radical, deconstructive effect for which he is famed.
Bernard Tschumi (born 1944) was Dean of the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University from 1988 to 2003. He lives in Paris and New York.
Edité à l'occasion de l'exposition rétrospective de Bernard Tschumi au Centre Pompidou, cet ouvrage retrace les moments clés du travail de l'architecte. Abondamment illustré, il souligne deux principes au coeur de son activité. Tout d'abord, l'architecture doit reposer sur des idées et des concepts plutôt que sur des formes. Ensuite, elle est indissociable des événements et des mouvements des corps qui l'habitent, d'où la nécessité d'explorer de nouveaux modes de notation pour construire les projections architecturales qui donneront corps à ces interactions entre espace, mouvement et action. Depuis les Manhattan Transcripts, projet majeur aux frontières de l'art, de la littérature et du cinéma, jusqu'au musée de l'Acropole, à Athènes, et la manufacture horlogère Vacheron Constantin, à Genève, en passant parle Parc de la Villette et l'architecture du Parc zoologique de Paris, ce catalogue au ton très personnel s'interroge sur les enjeux actuels de l'architecture. Proposant des textes de Frédéric Migayrou, d'Aurélien Lemonier et de Bernard Tschumi, ce volume exceptionnel s'adresse autant au grand public qu'aux amateurs d'art et d'architecture.