International CompetitionThird PrizeDAnce School of Paris: the vertical RUE du MOULINLe temps retrouvesThe moulin
rouge is one of those momuments that inmmidiately transports you to a
broad field of emotions...Many times unconscisly one recurrs to the visual,
smell, or touch memory; everytime a red curtain raises activates in the
subconscious minds the emotions of the great spectacle, so as when at a
first glimpse of Paris you picture the Moulin
Rouge, the cabaret and the intense deep red auguring the beginning of an
exciting experience.As in Mondrian red windmills our mind travels to the
parisian postcard of the famous cabaret. How to reinstall this monument
in the popular imaginery? The moulin
rougeAlong
history many transformations happened around the moulin,
as in the red curtain experience, each new transformation raises the
curtain to a new urban spectacle. How to achieve that antique splendor?
How to give to Paris a new urban landmark? How to reinvent a urban
monument? Cite de lumières: a Moulin Rouge to Paris: a Moulin
de lumièresParis
is the city of lights, is Champs Elisees and the Eiffel Tower. How to
add The Moulin Rouge to the array of identities? Purgatory-MezzanineActually the Moulin is
located on top of the theather marquee; from across the street you can
have the whole picture of it; the moulin
subjugates with its lights and the continous hipnotic movement of its
vanes, but you can not help to feel a distancy from it, like a
dreamscape out of the real thing, as an object in distant exhibition.
How to have a close encounter between the moulin
and the city that admires it? How to create a sublime experience? Extrusion-Monumentalization"I'm tired of flying, Will I
ever reach the floor?" Give the moulin
its feet! Today the Moulin
seems to be flying over Paris on top a poor gifted building
front...When removing this front building a veil that isolated the moulin from the city is raised. Our Moulin
needs to anchor in the city. To extrude the Moulin
towars the ground, we communicate the past with the present and the
future dance school.To connect the actual moulin with the XXI
century Paris a new monument is created. The "feet" of the Moulin conecting the old with the new is an extrusion
of the moulin shape with a rhombus pattern
around the base changing from density and scale while getting closer to
the original moulin. This rhombus are glass
windows reflecting the street, are screens showing information about
future shows, and some of them also exhibit selected garments from the
past or they just reflect the cityscape. This is how the Moulin anchors. The monumental stepping red esplanade
functions as the entrance for the dance school,but also giving a place
for the visitors to rest and enjoy the spectacle of the new anchored moulin in Paris. Le
Nuage for the moulin/Curtain BackgroundA two sided facade
triangle-like work as a neutral background for the moulin. On the daylight this curtain is a metallic perforated net with the
perforations changing in size simulating the shapes of clouds as if the
background of a Mondrian red windmill sky. From across the street the
building behind the moulin misteriusly
dissapears in the shape of lights and shades skyscape-alike. Paris will be a party: the Moulin,
the night and the curtain of a thousand lightsAt night the two sided
background becomes a constellation of a thousand lights. The
perforations light up and the show begings. A "rouge escalier" and a raised plaza: the urban
spectacleBehind
the cloud and the stars the Dance school takes shape as three stacked
rehearsal rooms on top of the access plaza esplanade. This esplanade
transforms into a "rouge escalier" climbing up the dance school.The Dance School behind the moulin is a volume-cloud perforated by the climbing
stairs, this public stair will unravel it's way toward the sky above the
cloud, transforming the top of the dance school into a raised plaza
above Paris.The
three Staked Rehearsal Rooms are permeated by this continous "Rouge
Escalier", along the way the flaneur can get "lost" in a series of
vertical passages, bridges-like tunnels, whom let the visitors take a
glimpse at the rehearsals on their way to the raised plaza. This hanging
petite streets also offer exhibitions and show a bit of the moulin history along the way to the top.On top of the Moulin the raised plaza renders amazing views towars
Paris. This new hill-like mirador is the culmination of a vertical
museum. the Moulin let the flaneur understand
its history, like a progression of each step up the mirador.This
vertical promenade is an extension of the parisian street into a
privileged new "rue du moulin".A changing urban scenary
gives a reborn monument to the idilic cite des lumieres. The Dance
School is the metamorphosis of a reinvented landmark in the collective
imaginary.