RESTRUCTURATION OF AN OLD TRAIN STATION INTO A CONCERT HALL IN SAINT-OUEN, FRANCE
The architectural concept is born after a disastrous report made on the consideration of the architectural patrimony of the Saint-Ouen’s old train station. Since his construction in 1889, the train station has been modified several times and all those modifications disturb the way to understand the original building. Our wish was to restitute the architectural integrity to the old station and to requalify the perception from the Leibniz Street with a new contemporary vocabulary.
The extension on the Saint-Ouen Avenue is demolished to restore the main facade with his three bay window rhythm and the emblematic canopy. The actual intermediate floor is also destructed to find again the “Pas perdus” room that will create the feeling of this site memory above the train tracks. The back facade, in front of the platforms, is transformed into a huge skylight where we can see the old entrance to the platforms from the Saint-Ouen Avenue. The wish here is to restitute all the memory and the feelings that we could find in the first calling of the original building.
We choose to requalify with a new contemporary vocabulary the existing extension where we can already find the place to welcome the public and all the necessary service to the exploitation of the café/concert space. The requalification take the appearance of calm and quiet monolith covered with a fiber concrete cladding. The extension singularize the contemporary architectural intervention and stage the original quality of the building. It’s a new era for the transformation of the building, more respectful of the original patrimony.
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