Event-Cities 5: Poetics (MIT Press, 2024) is the fifth and final volume in the series documenting recent built and unbuilt projects by Bernard Tschumi. The 640-page book, which expands on preoccupations that have shaped Tschumi’s theory and practice, is now available online and in bookstores.

 

In this volume, Tschumi embarks on what he calls a “poetics,” addressing both the rational elaboration of work and the irrational eruption of inexplicable elements in his architectural projects. How do chance, intuition, and analogy intersect with the logical play of concept, context, and program to generate innovative and informed design?

 

The book features nearly thirty projects developed over the last fifteen years and demonstrates Tschumi’s longstanding interest not only in producing conceptual clarity but also in questioning architecture itself.

 

For more info and to purchase: https://www.tschumi.com/publications/73

The exhibition explores Tschumi’s practice as a theoretician and builder. It was designed around five specific themes, ranging from the concept of “movement” to that of “doubles”. In each space, unexpected “poetics” result from the “fortuitous encounter” between the calculated abstraction of architectural concepts and the lived reality of cultural or climatic contexts.

 

Bernard Tschumi – Poétiques

Until January 26, 2025

Palais de l’Institut de France, Pavillon Comtesse de Caen

27, quai de Conti, Paris

 

For more info: https://www.academiedesbeauxarts.fr/exposition-poetiques-de-bernard-tschumi

 

Bernard Tschumi and Groupe-6 architectes are pleased to announce Paris-Saclay University’s Henri Moissan Center received a Special Prize from the Prix Versailles as one of the World’s Most Beautiful Campuses 2024. The award ceremony, held at UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris on December 2, celebrated the world’s finest contemporary architecture projects in categories including museums, airports, and sports venues. The prize recognizes international contributions of creativity, sustainability, and innovation.

 

For more information: https://www.prix-versailles.com/2024

On October 24, the AIA New York/Center for Architecture honored Bernard Tschumi as part of its Common Bond gala celebrating design excellence, advocacy, and preservation. The annual event welcomed one thousand attendees and raised nearly $1.2 million to support its mission, programs, and educational scholarships.

 

For more info: https://www.centerforarchitecture.org/support/gala/

Bernard Tschumi participates in the event: “The Grands Projets of the ‘Mitterrand Years’: Agreements and Controversies in Political and Architectural Circles.”

 

The Parc de la Villette is one of the "Grand Projects" of Francois Mitterand. This roundtable proposes to revisit the political, administrative, communicative and architectural apparatus put in place for their realization, as well as their reception and posterity.

 

For more info: https://rdv-histoire.com/

The Académie des Beaux-Arts (France) has awarded the Grand Prix d’Architecture 2024 to Franco-Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi.

 

The Grand Prix d’Architecture de l’Académie des beaux-arts (Charles Abella Prize) is an international prize awarded to an architect for his or her entire career. Along with its distinctions awarded in other disciplines, the Academy intends this prize to salute an exemplary trajectory in the architectural field.

 

An exhibition dedicated to the work of Bernard Tschumi will take place from December 5, 2024 to January 26, 2025 at the Pavillon Comtesse de Caen of the Academy of Fine Arts (Palais de l’Institut de France). The Prize will be presented to him on December 4, 2024 under the Dome of the Palais de l’Institut de France.

 

The Prize has been previously awarded to Alvaro Siza, Henri Ciriani, and Christian de Portzamparc. For more info: https://www.academiedesbeauxarts.fr/bernard-tschumi-laureat-du-grand-prix-darchitecture-2024

Bernard Tschumi receives an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Patras School of Architecture. As part of the ceremony, Tschumi delivered a lecture and presented a small exhibition of past projects.

 

The visit to Greece coincides with the 15th anniversary of the inauguration of the Acropolis Museum. A series of newspaper articles and an interview with Tschumi reflect on the celebrated museum.

 

For the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the French Ministry of Culture asked the 20 national schools of architecture and landscape (ENSA) to each create temporary pavilions at the Parc de la Villette. The structures, designed and built by students, will host various sports federations. They are made of sustainable materials like wood and straw in order to be recycled and repurposed at the end of the event.

 

For more information:

https://www.culture.gouv.fr/en/dossier-actualites/Dossiers/culture-at-the-heart-of-the-games-2/archi-folies-2024

 

https://www.lavillette.com/manifestations/archi-folies-2024/

Columbia GSAPP celebrates the 40th anniversary of Parc de la Villette!

 

Featuring Bernard Tschumi with Andrés Jaque, Michael Bell (Bell-Seong Architecture), Mario Gooden (Mario Gooden Studio), Jerome Haferd (Brandt:Haferd), Laurie Hawkinson (Smith-Miller+Hawkinson), Mimi Hoang (nARCHITECTS), Steven Holl (Steven Holl Architects), Wonne Ickx (PRODUCTORA), Jimenez Lai (Bureau Spectacular), Jing Liu (SO – IL), Reinhold Martin, Bart-Jan Polman, Galia Solomonoff (SAS), Mark Wigley, and additional guests.

 

For more info: https://www.arch.columbia.edu/news/lavillette40

The Parc de la Villette will be a major venue for the Olympic and Paralympic Games of Paris 2024. Organized by the Ministry of Culture and the French National Olympic and Sports Committee, twenty architecture schools across France will create temporary pavilions (“Archi-Folies”) to host various activities for French sporting federations during the 2024 Games. On July 7, students presented their initial designs. The models and drawings will be on view until July 20 at the École d’architecture Paris-Malaquais.

 

For more information: https://www.culture.gouv.fr/Actualites/Archi-Folies-le-monde-de-la-culture-et-le-monde-du-sport-se-mobilisent

Designed by Bernard Tschumi urbanistes Architects and Groupe-6, the new Biology-Pharmacy-Chemistry Center for the Université Paris-Saclay was inaugurated on April 18, 2023. The 74,000 square-meter (800,000 square-foot), €283 million complex is a major scientific center for the university and is one of the largest educational projects in France. The complex was completed in late 2022 and welcomed its first students and researchers soon after.

 

To watch a short video (in French) about the event by Le Figaro: https://video.lefigaro.fr/figaro/video/paris-saclay-le-plus-grand-centre-de-recherche-academique/

The competition for the Parc de la Villette was decided on March 25, 1983, after two days of deliberation. Bernard Tschumi was selected by an international jury from over 470 teams from 70 countries. His winning scheme, derived from the disjunctions and dissociations of our time, proposed an urban strategy for a new type of park based on cultural invention, education, and entertainment.

 

To celebrate the 40th anniversary, Bernard Tschumi Architects is releasing two t-shirts featuring iconic drawings from the project. The silkscreened white shirts depict either a grid of red folie transformations or a single exploded folie. The images represent some of the park’s key concepts: combination and fragmentation.

 

To purchase a t-shirt, visit: https://7dba1b.myshopify.com/

We are pleased to announce the launch of a new book devoted to Jean Tschumi’s building for insurance company Mutuelle Vaudoise. Join the authors Giulia Marino and Franz Graf along with historian Jacques Gubler and Bernard Tschumi for an event on March 16, 2023 at the Museum of Contemporary Design and Applied Arts (MUDAC), Lausanne.

The MVA Headquarters remains an important reference for the development of Modernist corporate architecture and identity in Switzerland and Europe. The book charts the building’s history to inform upcoming restoration work.

For more info:

https://news.epfl.ch/news/epfl-publishes-monograph-on-le-cedre-a-jewel-of-sw/
https://www.infolio.ch/livre/le-cedre-jean-tschumi-1951-1956/

Bernard Tschumi delivers a lecture for the Association of Hungarian Architects’ International Convention of Architecture in Budapest.

 

For more information: https://artifexkiado.hu/termek-cikk/mesz-nemzetkozi-epiteszkongresszus-2023

Bernard Tschumi delivers a lecture on February 9, 2023 at Miami FIU’s School of Architecture to celebrate its founding and the building that he designed after an international competition in 1999. The school is a combination of five buildings interconnected by walkways, bridges, and courtyards to foster interaction among students and faculty. Rectilinear volumes made of precast concrete panels contrast with twisted volumes clad in colorful ceramic tiles. The circulation spaces, along with the visual and material juxtapositions, help contribute to a dynamic environment for studying architecture.

For more information: https://carta.fiu.edu/academics/school-of-architecture/soa25/

The complex of buildings designed by Bernard Tschumi Urbanistes Architectes and by Groupe-6 for the University of Paris-Saclay Biology-Pharmacy-Chemistry is nearing completion.

A visit organized by the AMO National Association of Architects and Clients took place on October 20, 2022, guided by Bernard Tschumi and by Nathalie Pierre (Groupe-6) with Caroline Paul, Maxime Jourdain (Université-Paris-Sud) and Guillaume Lecoeur (Bouygues).

Photo: Raphaël de Bengy

Bernard Tschumi returns to the AA in London to deliver the inaugural Mark Cousins Annual Lecture. This newly established event commemorates the legacy of Mark Cousins, the school’s influential history and theory tutor. The talk reflects on the role of history as interpreted by historians and architects within architectural education along with issues of context in the firm’s projects. For more info: www.aaschool.ac.uk

Bernard Tschumi Architects is pleased to announce the groundbreaking of the Center for Sciences and Entrepreneurship (CSE) for the Swiss international Institute Le Rosey. The CSE is a new state-of-the-art facility with five levels of classrooms, laboratories, and programs to support student innovation, including a Maker’s Lab, Start-up Incubator Space, and Pitch Room all organized around a grand atrium with a sculptural spiral staircase. The CSE joins the Carnal Hall completed by Bernard Tschumi Architects for the campus in 2014; it is planned to open 2025. For more info: http://www.tschumi.com/projects/94/

In 1992, Queen Elizabeth II toured some of Paris’s Grands Projets including the Parc de la Villette as part of an official state visit. Here, Bernard Tschumi is pictured explaining the concepts of the new urban park to the royal guest.

Bernard Tschumi delivered the opening lecture of the Fall 2022 semester at the University of Pennsylvania’s Weitzman School of Design. The talk, “Contextualizing Concepts,” explored several of the office’s projects via the lens of context and how an architectural concept can be both derived from and materialized through a particular site.

To watch the lecture: https://youtu.be/Eh9qAUXSK1Y