CONCEPTUAL APPROACH AND FORMAL RESOLUTION
Urban and heritage integration...place for yesterday, place for tomorrow...
The challenge of building tomorrow's heritage lies first and foremost in knowing and respecting the history of the place. However, the development and transmission of this heritage requires an in-depth understanding of its components of interest as well as the analysis and choice of intervention criteria adapted to the characteristics of the site to be invested.
In this project, it is a question of preserving the essence and memory of the place through its temporal transformation at the environmental (landscapes and perceptions), urban (buildings), human (activities) and sensory (experiences and paths) levels.
At present, it is difficult for anyone who wants to have a clear idea of what Place d'Youville is to grasp its formal geometry. It has an asymmetrical square shape with a sloping plateau, closed on one side by the rampart. Fortifications and cluttered with equipment related to public transport and a considerable number of urban objects, the legibility of the square itself is compromised, not to mention the desirable affirmation of the genius of the place.
Before proposing a new development and implanting an institution that we would like to structure, it is important to ask the question: What is the real nature of Place d'Youville?
The open space of Place d'Youville owes its existence to a military strategy of zona non aedificandis, i.e. the front part of a fortification in which the ground is shaped to make it possible to submit to the view of an eventual assailant. This zone must be linked to the entire open sector upstream from the Place de l'Assemblée Nationale to the Citadel. In order to support the legibility of this historic landscape entity, we propose an urban design that de-clutters and simplifies the surfaces and thus highlights the structures and public buildings. In response to the new urban issues, we propose to split the current square that affects Place d'Youville into two distinct landscape systems that establish a stratified reading of the urban space at the approach of the military ramparts.
The western sector of Place d'Youville would thus be constituted in a sequence of north-south blocks forming a green corridor from Place De l'Assemblée nationale, which would allow for better direction of automobile traffic as well as that of public transportation and at the same time eliminate a cumbersome terminus. This succession of squares could be assigned to various civic functions in the manner of the perimeters of fortified cities à la Vauban to which the defensive works refer. We propose that the island in front of the Diamond be functionally dedicated to it and propose that this Place Des Glacis include a 20-meter circular plate that is sometimes a rotating stage and sometimes bleachers when the wall of the Diamond will be used as a place of entertainment.
In the eastern sector, we propose to re-establish the original right-of-way of Rue St-Jean as it approaches the ramparts, thus freeing up a larger esplanade in front of the two cultural facilities, the Diamant and the Capitole. This heritage right-of-way becomes a place where the enhancement of historical facades becomes an imposed figure and where evocations of disappeared uses, the marquee of the Cinéma de Paris, the strip of scrolling news, etc. take place on what historians of urban form could call a faubourg of spectacles.
In order to account for this self-imposed rule, we propose to reconstruct the lost part of the YMCA facade complete with its slate break and to give it back its silhouette. The reconstruction allows for a subtle interplay of contemporary assemblies interspersed within these traditional ones while three finely chiseled glass volumes pierce the masonry in a random fashion, two to provide morning light in the reception area and the third, larger one, to clearly mark the entrance to what we call the Lode.
From the unstructured and anachronistic urban setting of the current Place d'Youville, the implantation of Le Diamant, a new performance space, attempts to re-establish the balance of identity forces at the point of convergence of a place charged with history. Between the evocative art of the past and the theatrical immateriality of the architectural act, the creation of this place has the power to reassure or destabilize the spectator.
Functional solution...the first case, the seam...
The treatment of the exiguity of the places compared to the intensity of the program is an issue that we wanted to address in a central way in our proposal. It is for this reason that we have addressed the role of urban space in the deployment of scenic activities and it is the reason why we have reversed two important elements of the program. While the urban planning regulations govern the maximum height of a building, they are not concerned with the digging of basements. By placing Studio 1 in the basement and raising the auditorium by one floor, we obtain a generous and strategically placed open reception space on the first floor that interacts with Place Des Glacis to the west, with the businesses to the south and with the St-Jean Street entrance at the southeast corner, and that, in addition, provides a complete acoustic break between the two main rooms. This move offers another surprising advantage.
Through the use of long-span jacks, the orchestra pit becomes a stage elevator capable of serving both halls, as well as making it possible to deliver equipment that is too large or cumbersome to circulate in the landing area directly from Rue des Glacis.
The dynamic of the spatial pivot thus obtained from the reception area between Rue St-Jean and Place des Glacis becomes the opportunity to produce a "Z" shaped circulation area that leaves no residual nooks and crannies and that unfolds vertically associating all the functions in a productive hive atmosphere. This is what we have called the seam, a concept that we substitute for the idea of a jewel box, because we believe that there is not just one diamond in this chain of rich and complex places. By generous openings on the public space at its extremities, this string acquires a spatial dimension that has no common measure with its real dimensions.
With this distribution of the rooms, we obtain efficient and concentrated technical places behind the studio 1 and under the stage of the broadcasting room in a very opportune way. All that remained was to deploy the offices of Le Diamant in an attic that we would like to be true to the original and facing the faubourg des spectacles, and those of Ex machina in a floor from which the view of the horizon is only equalled by its ambitions.
True to our quest for acoustic performance, the building's aerial mechanics will occupy a space between the offices and the top of the stage house, supported by a mega-beam structure that spans the performance space.
The substantial structure of the complex will serve the architectural expression. In the cross circulation area the impressive steel structure of the performance hall will abut a hybrid steel/wood structure reconstructing the interior of the old YMCA. Seen from the reception area, the YMCA will be perceived as the back of a huge set culminating in a mansard roof structure whose traditional complexity is combined with a contemporary volumetric cut-out that favors the realization of a private roof terrace. All of this vertical space is contained by the benevolent overhang of the office floor in which a breakthrough allows a view of the sky and the occasional star.
Outside, a continuous metal skin with variable permeability bends and unfolds to offer a material respite in this area of the city where materials abound and where the visitor seeks a unity with the impressive presence of military structures. Playing on the variation of day and night perception of the depth of the volumes it covers, this skin has more than one trick up its sleeve. In perfect alignment with the Place des Glacis, this skin receives the projections that a mast placed on the square diffuses. From the inside, taking advantage of the network of lateral distribution gangways and hidden gondolas, actors open sections of the screen and interact with the projection or with each other. Like the solitary soldier on his titanic work, like the actor in the Greek tragedy or an urban-scale representation of the beautiful sisters. Deus Ex Machina.
Description of the performance space...resilience and malleability...
Aware of the important constraints that the practice of circus imposes on the traditional structure of theaters, we have developed an original structural concept that combines with the important cage designed to resist tensile forces to institute a modular system of anchoring in rack and pinion whose regular holes of 175mm c/c allow to carry up to six mobile bathtubs (thus increasing the gauge of the room) or also being able to receive removable footbridges or any other scenographic element to be invented in addition to the slings. These bathtubs or walkways are made accessible through aisles outside the hall, where only the airlocks and vertical circulation have been preserved and which also become overflow areas for the large foyer or the secondary foyer located respectively at the floor level of the hall and at the level of the control rooms, thus maximizing the corporate potential. The bathtubs will be mounted on brackets in order to offer the possibility of joining them to each other and thus modulating their height.
The circus constraint, which can be one of the most restrictive to respect, was used to explore certain limit states. The slopes of the bleachers, freed from the height of the YMCA floors by the addition of a floating intermediate foyer, were calibrated to increase the effect of wonder so dear to the circus practice. The floors of the broadcasting room and studio 1 also include a sacrificial slab for circus anchors and the floor of the orchestra pit, which has become a stage elevator, will be pinned to ensure its tensile capacity.
Covered on its exterior surface with a foam aluminum coating with a sound absorption capacity, the broadcasting room will be imbued with an aura of lightness that will contrast strongly with the minerality of studio 1. This Duality is not accidental, it tells the story of the roots of the company and its first incarnation on the slopes of the coast of Abraham, it also tells that the Diamond is no longer alone in the bowels of the cape, but set in a vein that comes to light.
(From competitor's text)
(Unofficial automated translation)
- The proposal combines a thorough analysis of the program, an original functional organization, and a discrete envelope;
- the volumetry resulting from the organization of the hall and the studios is an asset in relation to the Capitol;
- the urban analysis is outside the context of the competition and does not contribute to the identity aspect of the proposal;
- on the other hand, the theatrical aspect seems too literary and lacks substance
- the interior elements seem disparate; the red volume is arbitrary
- the functional option offers more space but is not consistent with the program
- the concept offers many ideas but is not well adapted to the reality of experimental theater
- the heritage approach advocating the demolition and reconstruction of the YMCA walls is not acceptable to the MCC
- the circus component is not a request of the PFT nor representative of the image of Ex Machina; it generates irrelevant structural costs
- the architectural language is not in keeping with the performance environment and the vocation of Place d'Youville;
- the insertion party does not contribute to the identity of Le Diamant.
(From jury report)
(Unofficial automated translation)
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