© Delphine Isart

• Architects: XTU Architects
• Location: Bordeaux, France
• Architect In Charge: Anouk Legendre, Nicolas Desmazières
• Project Leaders: Mathias Lukacs, Dominique Zentelin
• Area: 2016.0 sqm
• Project Year: 0
• Photographs: Delphine Isart, Patrick Tourneboeuf, XTU, Julien Lanoo, Paul Desmazieres

• Client: City of Bordeaux
• Owner: Fondation de La Cité du Vin 
• On Site Team: Delphine Isart, Claire Leroux, Thibault Le Poncin, Joan Tarragon
• Research Team: Joan Tarragon, Gaëlle Le Borgne, Stefania Maccagan, Cristina Sanchez
• Partners: Casson Mann ,Scenographer (innovative tool of the permanent tour), SNC-Lavalin ,Engineering, Le Sommer Environnement ,Environmental engineering
• Site: 13 644 m²
• Budget: 81M€ excluding VAT/ 55M€ (architecture + scenography)
• Credits: XTU, Delphine Isart, Julien Lanoo, Patrick Tourneboeuf

© Julien Lanoo

Plan 0

‘This building does not resemble any recognizable shape because it is an evocation of the soul of wine between the river and the city.’

A strong architectural statement, La Cité du Vin stands out with its bold curves and shape. An iconic building, this golden frame hosts a Cité within the city, a living space with experiences to discover. 

© Julien Lanoo

The initial aim of the building’s architecture was genuinely to create a link between La Cité du Vin and the spaces surrounding it through perpetual movement.

Anouk Legendre and Nicolas Desmazières, the architects from XTU, designed a space shaped by symbols of identity: gnarled vine stock, wine swirling in a glass, eddies on the Garonne. Every detail of the architecture evokes wine’s soul and liquid nature: ‘seamless roundness, intangible and sensual’ (XTU Architects).

© Julien Lanoo

This roundness transcribed in the building’s exterior can also be felt in its indoor spaces, materials and scale. La Cité du Vin dazzles with a golden shimmer reminiscent of the light stone found on Bordeaux facades. Its own facade is made up of silk-screen printed glass panels and perforated, iridescent, lacquered aluminium panels.

© Patrick Tourneboeuf

Changing with the sunshine or the time of day, the building dialogues with the river through its reflections: there are very close parallels with a wine’s constantly changing appearance. This very distinctive shape causes you to look at the river running past from a different perspective.

© Julien Lanoo

The building’s two entrances on either side create an impression of movement, ebb and flow between inside and outside. One entrance faces the city and the other faces the river. Higher up, the viewing tower enables visitors to discover the illuminated city and the surrounding land, almost like a watchtower.

Section

© XTU

In the eyes of XTU, the main tour itself follows these flows: wine, the river, the flow of visitors. You pass through the building like a river, with visitors becoming voyagers flowing around the central staircase, perpetuating this impression of movement.

© Julien Lanoo

Structure

This means that visitors are constantly moving as they experience a virtuous circle of discovery. Each person discovers a new world in a fluid, rotating motion leading to an unusual, limitless destination, like a journey through the meanderings of a cultural landscape which feeds the imagination.
The initial aim was for the building programme to develop in line with the scenography, making the architecture a voyage in itself.

© Julien Lanoo

Downstairs is therefore a dark world, like a cellar, with the roots of the vines. The ground floor is raw as an immersion stage diving into the project, a crossing point. The mirror reflections are disorienting and encourage visitors to move upwards towards the light. They feel this light on the courtyard then follow it through the structure until it finally explodes. There is no fixed route to follow, just worlds to discover.

© Julien Lanoo

The aim of the experience is genuinely to question rather than let alone. Sometimes the architecture steps back, in other places it reappears.The wooded arch of the permanent tour, the strongest area of La Cité du Vin, is like a varied sky. The sky is everything in winemaking, determining the harvest. This wooden sky rises, undulates and tightens. Once again, this is all about movement.

© Julien Lanoo

The wooden structure is reminiscent of a timber frame, of boats, of wine on its travels. It is an immersive break with reality, a world of roundness, fluidity and elevation approximating the wine experience. Visitors are in a discovery mind-set initiated by the architecture, which creates the right conditions for them to discover and complete this immersive, initiatory journey.

© XTU

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© Laurian Ghinitoiu

As part of ArchDaily’s coverage of the 2016 Venice Biennale, we are presenting a series of articles written by the curators of the exhibitions and installations on show.

You are part of another’s shadow.
—Sverre Fehn in conversation with Per Olaf Fjeld [1]

A central impetus for this exhibition is to acknowledge the presence of the ‘ghosts’ of Nordic architecture – those architects, theorists and educators—the most famous of which are often described as ‘Modern Masters’—who continue to exert influence on contemporary practice and pedagogy. Indeed, one of the most prominent of these gures, the Norwegian Sverre Fehn, designed the Nordic Pavilion. This exhibition addresses a common challenge faced by Finns, Norwegians and Swedes today: how can a building (or an exhibition, in this instance) exist in a dialogue with its setting when that setting is so charged? For us, this ties into a broader question: how can architecture occupy a legacy while still making progress?

© Laurian Ghinitoiu

Recognizing Fehn’s original intentions to have the building entirely open, In Therapy treats the Pavilion as an extension of the public space of the Giardini. The central installation of the exhibition—a step-pyramid built using traditional construction techniques from Swedish pine—precisely mirrors the treads and risers of the existing staircase to create a profile-amphitheatre for critical debate and reflection. In other ways, however, it distances itself from the weight of the space in order to confront visitors with an impression, however fleeting, of the state of contemporary Nordic architecture. Here, free from historicism, fundamental questions can be raised: How has architecture over the last nine years developed? Which threads tie them together and what unifying direction, if any, can be discerned? What does it take to be at the cutting edge, trying to conquer new fields? Most importantly: what’s next?

© Laurian Ghinitoiu

In order to encourage distance, this exhibition isn’t really attempting to be an exhibition at all. It does not demand your full attention, nor does it attempt to deliver its message all at once. It aspires to deflect the monotony of the archetypal ‘stand-and-look’ show by creating a clearing amid the congestion to reflect on the material that’s been gathered and the voices convened. The central installation—the pyramid—is not only an urban artifact but also a display; an inhabitable installation to be investigated and explored. Architecture, at least in the form and quantity that has been convened here, might best be experienced in a state of distraction.[2]

© Laurian Ghinitoiu

The pyramid itself acts as a vessel, presenting the responses to an Open Call which invited practices from around the world to submit projects they have realised in the Nordic nations between 2008 and 2016. Each practice was challenged to self-categorise their project as either Foundational (defined as architecture that cares for society’s basic needs), related to Belonging (architecture which enacts public programs and creates public spaces, enabling people to become citizens), or in a state of Recognition (architecture which appreciates and reflects upon the values of Nordic society). Each have suggested how their project has—or, indeed, has not—contributed to the current condition of Finnish, Norwegian or Swedish society.

© Laurian Ghinitoiu

This tripartite classification—which translates here as three coloured bands—is an interpretative take on the structure of Abraham Maslow’s 1954 Hierarchy of Needs, in which he theorised the basic and complex motivational ‘needs’[3] which represent the progress of the individual. Maslow described the pinnacle of his hierarchy, which he diagrammed as a pyramid, as ‘self-actualisation’ (or the realisation of one’s full potential) – achievable only once all the ‘needs’ which underpin it have been satisfied; in other words, each step prerequisites the next. If here the pyramid represents the development of society, architecture can be read as its building blocks.

© Laurian Ghinitoiu

Here, therefore, the Nordic nations have been placed “in therapy.” Although it might appear that Finland, Norway and Sweden are at the pinnacle of the pyramid—having achieved a state-level balance between a capitalist society and the welfare state, revered the world over—they also face complex challenges. From concerns relating to demands on immigration and social integration, to an ageing population and realignment in a newly, or soon to be, post-industrial economy, In Therapy has brought together unconscious and conscious elements (the pyramid of projects and a collection of reflections, respectively) in order to tease out the connections and conflicts between architecture and Nordic society at large. It is architecture—in its broadest role as a spatial, social, and cultural practice—which sits at the center of this discourse.

© Laurian Ghinitoiu

In this sense, In Therapy is a mirror: a collection of installations which presents the breadth of contemporary Nordic architecture, assembled under one roof, to provide an informed framework for discussion and proposition. It positions Finland, Norway and Sweden—three countries with distinct histories, cultures and attitudes to design—face to face in the context of the compressed world of the Giardini, interrogating perceptions and preconceptions of Nordic architecture by openly addressing its built manifestation head on.

© Laurian Ghinitoiu

Team

Curator David Basulto
Assistant Curator James Taylor-Foster
Commissioners ArkDes (Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design), Stockholm; Museum of Finnish Architecture, Helsinki; National Museum’s Department of Architecture, Oslo
Project Management Karin Åberg Waern
Project Advisors Juulia Kauste, Eva Madshus
Exhibition Design Marge Arkitekter
Graphic Design MPVK and Lisa Olausson
Typographer Thomas Hirter
Sub-Editing Crystal Bennes

References

[1] For a brief summary, see: Christian Norberg Shultz, The Poetic Vision of Sverre Fehn in Sverre Fehn: Works, Projects, Writings, 1949–1996. Ed. Christian Norberg-Schulz, Gennaro Postiglione (New York: Monacelli Press, 1997), pp.32–41 – via Mark J. Neveu, On Stories: Architecture and Identity (Oslo: Arkitektur N, 02, 2008), p. 7
[2] W. Benjamin, H. Zorn trans., The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction in Illuminations (London: Pimlico, 1999), p.232
[3] Namely ‘physiological’ (shelter, warmth, food, and sleep), ‘social’ needs (security, order, and stability), and those related to personal ‘esteem’ (achievement, prestige, and respect)

© Laurian Ghinitoiu

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© Iván Casal Nieto

• Architects: SA Estudio
• Location: A Coruña, A Coruña, Spain
• Project Year: 2012
• Photographs: Iván Casal Nieto

• Author Architect: Severo Rodríguez Somoza
• Collaborators: Minerva García Romay, Javier Álvarez González –

© Iván Casal Nieto

From the architect. Alma Negra talks about an ancient stationery conversion in a wine restaurant. 

The project aims to meet some strict conditions: a long and tight plot and normative heights that didn’t allow the preservation of the existing mezzanine.

Floor Plan

Black steel structural profiles are the project focus.

They set the rhythm in the local. In addition they brace the original stone wall.

© Iván Casal Nieto

Axonometric

© Iván Casal Nieto

They also order the local creating contrasted areas with different materials. (Wood to receive, coco doormat to filter, hardwood to sit and eat, and tile hydraulics in restrooms and kitchen)

© Iván Casal Nieto

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© Maxime Delvaux – B612 Associates

• Architects: B612 Associates
• Location: Brussels, Belgium
• Collaborators: Li Mei Tsien, Olivier Mathieu and B612 Associates Team
• Area: 2222.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Maxime Delvaux – B612 Associates

© Maxime Delvaux – B612 Associates

This is a project of public equipment and housing that includes a neighborhood center,  an after-school care facility, an office for the brussels’ port authorities, a common garden and 16 social housing of passive energetic standard.

© Maxime Delvaux – B612 Associates

The project is located in Molenbeek-Saint-Jean, at the corner of an urban block, along the Brussels-Charleroi’s canal. Positioned only a few steps from the canal lock, it occupies a strategic position in an industrial urban district, currently undergoing important urban regeneration. 

© Maxime Delvaux – B612 Associates

In this context, the design of the architectural volume has sought to create, at the scale of the city, an anchor and a reference point, that can accompany and support the revitalization of a still unattractive neighborhood.

© Maxime Delvaux – B612 Associates

The compactness of the building and the proposition for a higher volume have allowed to free the center of the block (converted into semi-public garden) and introduce some qualitative breathing within the uniformity of the industrial fabric.  The project brings vegetation in a very “ungreen” area and creates permeability and fluidity between the heart of the building and its neighborhood.  From a perceptual and functional point of view, the generosity and legibility of the circulations, the shared outdoor areas and the welcome areas of the building, are all invitations for dialogue and exchanges. They create a real synergy between the building and its surroundings that favors social exchanges.

Plan

Section

The proposed volume is simple, rational but varied. The facades of the project are generously but adequately opened. They express, reflect on and talk about the functions they shelter. Moreover, the privileged position of the housing functions, in the higher part of the building, provides them with optimum-sunshine and spectacular views. At the same time, the equipments, distributed between the first 2 levels of the building, hold  as well an ideal position.  Largely open and transparent, they are closely interacting, as needed, with the public spaces around.

© Maxime Delvaux – B612 Associates

The project has been awarded  “exemplary building” for its performance in energy, technical and environmental approach as well as for its careful study of its context.

© Maxime Delvaux – B612 Associates

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Courtesy of 23o5studio

• Architects: 23o5studio
• Location: Tân An, tp. Thủ Dầu Một, Binh Duong, Vietnam
• Architect In Charge: Ngô Việt Khánh Duy
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Courtesy of 23o5studio

• Contruction: Nguyễn Hữu Công Uẩn, Lê Duy Tân

Courtesy of 23o5studio

“The Memory” is an architectural project that is designed for a family of 3 generations – One of the specific characteristics of the Vietnamese – cultural tradition is having the grandparents, the parents and the children all living together in the same house.The spatial structure of this project requires a solution to solve basis daily issues that could arise between 2 young families and an elderly. In addition, the relation, the correlation and  the collision occur when there is no syntony in the lifestyles of the 3 generations  is also a big challenge. In order to solve this problem, we consciously design a big house with 2 smaller private houses inside but they have the common front yard as well as back yard; at the end, all of the structures come together as one block .

Courtesy of 23o5studio

The creation of a secondary activity area and a walkway to the back of the house  helps segregating daily life activities of the 2 families and preventing them from colliding with each other; however, the house is still a continuous space for the children to play and the whole family to connect with one another. The main entrance of structure reminds us of “porch roof”  of a traditional Vietnamese house, it is like a terrace space made of trees and water .The main entrance is also higher lifted than the floor to create a gap that is big enough for ventilation. “Ngạch cửa” – an interesting detail of a Vietnamese house – is a place where they can sit,  relax, or chat with their neighbors;  especially, this is also – the children’ favorite playing space . The living room seems to be a small indoor yard where the light always changes, this is an enjoyable highlight when we step into this space.

Diagram

In addition, one focus point of this project which we want to retain is the old tiled roof which was built by the grandfather himself about 50 years ago before the new house was constructed. This roof is the center and also  the transitional space, it is seen as the soul of the overall structure of this house. The space below this tiled roof is the place where the whole family have dinner together everynight -, share stories as well as recalling past memories. The space above the roof  is transformed into a multi-purposed place for the children – to relax or reading book….

Courtesy of 23o5studio

With “Khoảng trống” and natural light cleverly tackled, we can easily feel the outside weather from the inside. The spatial ratio is also carefully considered to create necessary contrast between one space and another, light and darkness, modern and tradition. The height of the space is correlated with the empty spaces to bring the edequate sensation and make the people feel comfortable living inside. Beside ratio, space, light, and shadow, we also put into some trees  so that everyone who comes in “the memory” can feel everything truely and closely.The trees are the balancing points between the visual and material blocks of the house, they also have sensation-balancing effect.

Plan 1

Plan 2

Plan 3

“The Memory” is not just a house, it also reminds the family members of  of their lost ones. According to the “No born, no die” philosophy, when we lose a beloved family member, the grief will always be there but the essence is in fact  “no born, no die”. We believe that in this house, in this space, the soul of the late grandfather and father will always exist  – in every single tile, pillar, detail… which was made by the ancestors themselves. .

Courtesy of 23o5studio

“The Memory” aims to clear out the notion about the contrast between oldness and newness, light and darkness, tradition and modern. The project aims to stop people from tying themselves to one perception and taking it as the only truth. When you are not tied to one perception only, you are free.

Courtesy of 23o5studio

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As part of ArchDaily’s coverage of the 2016 Venice Biennale, we are presenting a series of articles written by the curators of the exhibitions and installations on show.

Of the few dozen articles on architecture and urbanism I have contributed to the Korea Joongang Daily, it was the one entitled “The FAR Game” that received the biggest response from readers. While FAR (Floor Area Ratio) appears to be technical jargon for professionals, it seems that almost every Korean either knows what it is, or has heard about it. If you type yong-jeong-nyul (용적률, the Korean word for FAR) on Korean search engines, an endless stream of news, articles, and commentary pops up. The word speaks to the hunger for living space in a hyper-dense environment, as well as the desire to satisfy that hunger by any means possible, whether by proper planning and tactics or through trickery and obfuscation. It touches both the rich and the poor, the white-collar and the blue-collar, as they navigate their lives together in and around the urban fabric. Upon reading that article, where I had stated that without a doubt it is FAR that drives the architectural character of Korean cities, a renowned urban researcher told me I had hit the nail right on the head.

© Laurian Ghinitoiu

On seeing that Alejandro Aravena proposed the theme “Reporting from the Front” for this year’s Venice Biennale, my immediate thought was that the play of the FAR Game was the real battle being waged on Korea’s architectural front lines. The fact is that 99% of Korean architects must play the game in order to survive. An architect rarely gets a commission unless they can convince clients that their design proposal has larger rentable floor areas than their competitor’s.

© Laurian Ghinitoiu

In Korea, most clients and landowners are paying for the invisible quantity of the building, not the visible quality of the architecture. Buildings themselves are often not valued in the real estate market. The average lifespan of a building is shorter than that of a human being. If a new building can provide an increase in FAR, then demolition and reconstruction are sought. It is not uncommon to see celebratory banners when a building fails its structural stability test, because it means the demolition will be approved.

© Laurian Ghinitoiu

The FAR Game is particularly relevant to South Korea due to its recent history of unprecedented economic growth. In 1962, when the first Building Act and Urban Planning Act were established, South Korea’s GDP per capita was less than $100 USD. Over the next 50 years it grew more than 300 times while land prices multiplied more than 600 times. This lead to “compressed growth” and hyper-density in the country’s urban industrial hubs, with the Greater Seoul Metropolitan Area being the prime example. Combined with plot-based building regulations and an irregular and heterogeneous urban grain, Korean urban architecture has not been able to escape from the desperate and complex drive to augment living space that characterizes the FAR Game.

© Laurian Ghinitoiu

It is true that a clear identity for Korean architecture has been blurred amid the struggle between conflicting agendas: demolition vs. regeneration, privatization vs. nationalization, aesthetics vs. practicality. But underneath all of these considerations, the FAR Game always rages. It is easy to dismiss the FAR Game as a symptom of unscrupulous greed, and perhaps this is why theorists and critics rarely talk about it openly. However the reality is that, rather than resisting it, architects in Korea must welcome the tension between the desire for maximum floor area and the building rules that restrict it, and use that tension to spark creativity and innovation.

© Laurian Ghinitoiu

The FAR Game Exhibit at the Korean Pavilion is designed to track changes in the game after the global economic crisis of 2008, and highlight the best examples of creative responses to the demands of FAR. Our team of six curators have analyzed the data and have worked to enroll participants and select materials that will illustrate not only the harsh realities facing Korean architecture and cities, but also the ways that our industry is making small changes for a better life as Aravena proposes.

© Laurian Ghinitoiu

Before I applied for this curatorship I spoke with a close friend, who encouraged me to go ahead if I could enjoy the process and not get caught up with trying to impress people. This made me think of Paulo Coelho’s modern vanity fair satire “The Winner Stands Alone,” set at the Cannes Film Festival. The Venice Biennale itself could be perceived as a vanity fair for closed circles of people increasingly detached from the reality of everyday life. However, I choose to see it as a platform for different perspectives from otherwise unheard voices. I represent my country here not to seek recognition, but to open a discussion with architectural professionals as well as the interested public about why the FAR Game matters in Korea and to architecture in general.

The FAR Game is a kind of self-portrait of Korea. Rooted in our past, it will continue to exert itself on the development of architecture in Korea well into the future. A far game, indeed.

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