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Logistic Centre
Logistic Centre
Gennevilliers, France
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Other Projects by Dietmar Feichtinger Architectes
Logistic Centre
Gennevilliers, France
Type
YEAR
2005
SIZE
100,000 sqft - 300,000 sqft
BUDGET
$1M - 5M
A1 Building of the Port Autonome de Paris,
Gennevilliers, France
Text
Matthias Boeckl
A Centre of Calm amidst the Transloading of Containers
Quality architecture for a freight-shipping terminal
located on a major waterway, and an Austrian architect who has made a career in
Paris are two equally unusual but highly positive phenomena. The A1 building by
Dietmar Feichtinger shows that the banal task of erecting an office block in a
port area is suitable subject for the application of high aesthetic and
technological standards.
The Mecca of Modernism
The spontaneous path taken by Dietmar Feichtinger’s
career is reminiscent of the idealistic young architects in the 1920s, who
undertook a pilgrimage to the Mecca of Modernism to learn there about the
"future“ at first hand. One examples was the young, determined and
socially committed Herbert Eichholzer who came from Graz in 1929 to work for Le
Corbusier in Paris and later applied Corbusier's theories in his Styrian
homeland, before falling victim to the Nazis. After completing his studies
Feichtinger also worked in aesthetically advanced offices, all of which have in
common an orientation towards the new technologies of transparency. He
initially worked with Volker Giencke and Klaus Kada in Graz, then in Paris for
Chaix & Morel, who have devoted themselves to a clear technological formal
language. After five years with Chaix & Morel Feichtinger embarked upon the
adventure of self-employment and opened an office in Paris, which, in its ten
years of existence, has won an impressive number of competitions. In the
meantime, following on these successes (that were founded on the precision and
diaphanous elegance of Feichtinger’s steel and glass elements) he has completed
two large building projects in Austria: the Donau University in Krems and the
Kulturhaus in Weiz – we will report about them. In Paris construction has
recently started of his slender passerelle across the Seine, near Dominique
Perrault’s National Library – it was the outcome of one of the first anonymous
competitions organised by a public client in Paris and laid the foundation
stone for Feichinger’s career as a self-employed architect. Since then
Feichtinger architectes have carried out numerous further bridges, but with the
new office block in the Parisian container port this young office has shown
that it can extract a subtle poetry from every kind of building commission.
Autonomous
Aesthetic
The fascinating thing about buildings for inland
waterway transportation is their incredible efficiency and highly developed
logistics. The Seine, which has always been one of Europe’s major waterways and
played an important role in the historic development of Paris, is navigable by
cargo ships with a load of several hundred containers. The Seine is linked by
canals with many other rivers to create a network of waterways throughout
Europe, which, with the Rhine and the Danube, connects almost the entire
continent. In the extensive port of Gennevilliers the containers are
transloaded to trucks and trains and transported to their final destinations
throughout the country. The container crane that carries out this work stands
directly beside the office building, allowing those using the conference room
on the third floor a very direct experience of the transloading process. The
most striking characteristic of the building is, naturally, the cladding made
of anodised aluminium fins that were specially produced by a German
manufacturer. As it primarily serves as solar protection this second skin covers
only three sides of the building; the north side, where the conference room is
located, is left exposed. The structure is a simple skeletal frame glazed on
all sides, the internal concrete columns are skim plastered and painted grey.
In principle this arrangement allows open plan offices but here, like
everywhere else, the users mostly prefer smaller spaces that are made using
lightweight partition walls. The fins made of perforated metal – a prototype
for the Donau University in Krems – can be adjusted individually from inside
the building. Their colour and structure is reminiscent of the corrugated metal
of the containers, that are transloaded here, but they maintain a fine
aesthetic of their own that goes far beyond any banal notion of suggesting associations
though the use of images. The fact that on the south side the fins are also
vertical rather than horizontal (which, in fact, would provide more shade from
the midday sun) shows that the skin of metal fins is not merely functional but
is also an autonomous aesthetic element On the three lower levels this simple
quadratic building is indented on the west and south fronts, which creates a
more expansive entrance situation on the one side and a recess, much like an
internal courtyard, on the other. The roof terrace, from which you have a view
over the entire port area, offers further direct contact with the outdoors. The
full height glazing used in the ground floor offices conveys the immediate
presence of the transport world outside, as a railway track runs directly past
the east facade.
The principal user of the building is the management
of the Paris terminal, located on the third floor. A number of transport
companies have rented office space on the floors below, while on the ground
floor there are counter areas, where the freight papers required by the truck
drivers are dealt with, as well as common rooms for the port workers. For these
users, but above all also for visitors that have business to do here, the small
building conveys a uniquely attractive vibrancy. On the one hand it is
completely integrated in its industrial and business surroundings through the
various spatial and aesthetic means employed, while on the other it
demonstrates a subtle independence, which is what ultimately distinguishes the
world of machines from that of human beings.
Gennevilliers, France
Text
Matthias Boeckl
A Centre of Calm amidst the Transloading of Containers
Quality architecture for a freight-shipping terminal
located on a major waterway, and an Austrian architect who has made a career in
Paris are two equally unusual but highly positive phenomena. The A1 building by
Dietmar Feichtinger shows that the banal task of erecting an office block in a
port area is suitable subject for the application of high aesthetic and
technological standards.
The Mecca of Modernism
The spontaneous path taken by Dietmar Feichtinger’s
career is reminiscent of the idealistic young architects in the 1920s, who
undertook a pilgrimage to the Mecca of Modernism to learn there about the
"future“ at first hand. One examples was the young, determined and
socially committed Herbert Eichholzer who came from Graz in 1929 to work for Le
Corbusier in Paris and later applied Corbusier's theories in his Styrian
homeland, before falling victim to the Nazis. After completing his studies
Feichtinger also worked in aesthetically advanced offices, all of which have in
common an orientation towards the new technologies of transparency. He
initially worked with Volker Giencke and Klaus Kada in Graz, then in Paris for
Chaix & Morel, who have devoted themselves to a clear technological formal
language. After five years with Chaix & Morel Feichtinger embarked upon the
adventure of self-employment and opened an office in Paris, which, in its ten
years of existence, has won an impressive number of competitions. In the
meantime, following on these successes (that were founded on the precision and
diaphanous elegance of Feichtinger’s steel and glass elements) he has completed
two large building projects in Austria: the Donau University in Krems and the
Kulturhaus in Weiz – we will report about them. In Paris construction has
recently started of his slender passerelle across the Seine, near Dominique
Perrault’s National Library – it was the outcome of one of the first anonymous
competitions organised by a public client in Paris and laid the foundation
stone for Feichinger’s career as a self-employed architect. Since then
Feichtinger architectes have carried out numerous further bridges, but with the
new office block in the Parisian container port this young office has shown
that it can extract a subtle poetry from every kind of building commission.
Autonomous
Aesthetic
The fascinating thing about buildings for inland
waterway transportation is their incredible efficiency and highly developed
logistics. The Seine, which has always been one of Europe’s major waterways and
played an important role in the historic development of Paris, is navigable by
cargo ships with a load of several hundred containers. The Seine is linked by
canals with many other rivers to create a network of waterways throughout
Europe, which, with the Rhine and the Danube, connects almost the entire
continent. In the extensive port of Gennevilliers the containers are
transloaded to trucks and trains and transported to their final destinations
throughout the country. The container crane that carries out this work stands
directly beside the office building, allowing those using the conference room
on the third floor a very direct experience of the transloading process. The
most striking characteristic of the building is, naturally, the cladding made
of anodised aluminium fins that were specially produced by a German
manufacturer. As it primarily serves as solar protection this second skin covers
only three sides of the building; the north side, where the conference room is
located, is left exposed. The structure is a simple skeletal frame glazed on
all sides, the internal concrete columns are skim plastered and painted grey.
In principle this arrangement allows open plan offices but here, like
everywhere else, the users mostly prefer smaller spaces that are made using
lightweight partition walls. The fins made of perforated metal – a prototype
for the Donau University in Krems – can be adjusted individually from inside
the building. Their colour and structure is reminiscent of the corrugated metal
of the containers, that are transloaded here, but they maintain a fine
aesthetic of their own that goes far beyond any banal notion of suggesting associations
though the use of images. The fact that on the south side the fins are also
vertical rather than horizontal (which, in fact, would provide more shade from
the midday sun) shows that the skin of metal fins is not merely functional but
is also an autonomous aesthetic element On the three lower levels this simple
quadratic building is indented on the west and south fronts, which creates a
more expansive entrance situation on the one side and a recess, much like an
internal courtyard, on the other. The roof terrace, from which you have a view
over the entire port area, offers further direct contact with the outdoors. The
full height glazing used in the ground floor offices conveys the immediate
presence of the transport world outside, as a railway track runs directly past
the east facade.
The principal user of the building is the management
of the Paris terminal, located on the third floor. A number of transport
companies have rented office space on the floors below, while on the ground
floor there are counter areas, where the freight papers required by the truck
drivers are dealt with, as well as common rooms for the port workers. For these
users, but above all also for visitors that have business to do here, the small
building conveys a uniquely attractive vibrancy. On the one hand it is
completely integrated in its industrial and business surroundings through the
various spatial and aesthetic means employed, while on the other it
demonstrates a subtle independence, which is what ultimately distinguishes the
world of machines from that of human beings.
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