BERNARD TSCHUMI

PRESENTED BY: CHANDRIKA RAJARAM

INTRODUCTION
• Bernard Tschumi (born in 25 January, 1944, Switzerland),
is an architect, writer and educator, commonly
associated with deconstructivism.
• He is the son of a well-known Swiss architect Jean
Tschumi and a French mother.
• He studied in Paris and at ETH in Zurich, where he
received his degree in architecture in 1969.
• Thereafter, he started his professional career by
teaching at Portsmouth Polytechnic in Portsmouth UK,
Architecture Association in London, the Institute for
Architecture and Urban Studies in New York etc.
• He not only served as a Professor at Columbia University
but also was the Dean of the Graduate School of
Architecture, Planning and Preservation from 1988 to
2003.
•
Design Philosophy
• Tschumi believed that there is no relationship between the architectural form and the
events that take place within it.
• He adopted the principle of deconstructive architecture.
• His focus was more on the intellectual part than the human requirements associated with
his buildings.
• “Form Follows Function”.
• Theory is Timlessness.
• Red is not just a color.
PARC LA VILLETTE
• The Parc La Villette is one of the largest parks in Paris,
located at the North eastern edge of the 19th
arrondissement of Paris, on the Right banks of River
Seine.
• Paris has a temperate climate similar to UK. There are
three broad general types of soil: brown forest soil,
northwestern brown forest variation and European
Podzol. Hence, the it acts as an important factor in the
design of this park.
• Tschumi did not design the park in a traditional
mindset where landscape and nature are predominant
forces behind the design.
• Rather he envisioned Parc La Villette as a place of
culture where natural and artificial are forced together
into a state of constant reconfiguration and discovery.
• For Tschumi’s overall goal to induce exploration,
movement and interaction, he scattered 10 themed
gardens throughout the site which gives visitors a
chance to relax, meditate and even play.
The lines of the park
are composed of two
major perpendicular
axes running parallel
to the orthogonal
grid.
These form the major
walkways through the
park and consist
mostly of iron and
steel.
The lines give the
park a strong linear
focus.
A curved walkway
threads its way
through the park,
intersecting the linear
walks at various
points.
SPACES AT THE PARC

IMAX Theatre Science Museum

Musical Hall for Jazz

POINT
• The next element of form in
Tschumi’s design comes by the
way of points which are based
upon deconstructed cubes
placed 120 m apart from one
another in a grid pattern.
• A folly is a decorative element
used in a garden, however, in
Parc La Villette, they act as
some different element.
• Using the rules of
transformation, Tschumi has
designed the follies without any
functional considerations.
 Grass, earth, metal,
concrete and gravel
allow for complete
programmatic
freedom.

Landscape elements have

become the infill between
the built structures that
organize the project spatially
and functionally.

The Garden of Movement is a play area

with different kinds of moving apparatus.
 The Garden of
Dragon, le Jardin du
Dragon, is a giant 80
m long apparatus in
the shape of a
dragon with a long
slide extending from
its mouth.

The Garden of Childhood Fears has a

walkway broadcasting eerie music as
one crosses the forest of Blue spruce
and silver birch trees.
PARIS ZOOLOGICAL PARK
• Bernard Tschumi has reimagined Paris’s beloved but crumbling 1934 zoo in a way that
improves the experience for both visitors and the animals.
• Location: 53 Avenue de Saint-Maurice, Paris.
• The another Landscape Architect who worked on this project was Mikael Mugnier.
ABOUT THE PARK
• The park has a created successive visual frames that enlarge the dimensions and breaks the distance
between humans and animals.
• The landscaping is done in a way that it changes through the seasons and years as we move.
• Alternating overall views and total immersion, the circuit rolls out like a ribbon along which contrasting
landscapes succeed each other.
• Topography is used as basic feature to lead visitors from surprise to surprise without revealing the circuit’s
next stage.
• The Biozones are not mere mimicry of idealized nature transposed to the heart of Paris.
• Landscape has been completely invented with the site’s original and essential features and relief being
suggested.
Biozones define the variation of
landform into builtmass,
topography, vegetation.
LANDSCAPE FEATURES

Entrance Gate Pathway leading to

Cinema and Theatre

Giraffe Habitat
Ariel View of Giraffe Habitat
THANK YOU