Add To Collection
Add to Collection
Zenith de Strasbourg
Zenith de Strasbourg
Strasbourg, France
View Original
Add To Collection
Add to Collection
View Original
Add To Collection
Add to Collection
View Original
Add To Collection
Add to Collection
View Original
Add To Collection
Add to Collection
View Original
Add To Collection
Add to Collection
View Original
Add To Collection
Add to Collection
View Original
Add To Collection
Add to Collection
View Original
Add To Collection
Add to Collection
View Original
Add To Collection
Add to Collection
View Original
Add To Collection
Add to Collection
View Original
Add To Collection
Add to Collection
Other Projects by Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas
Zenith de Strasbourg
Strasbourg, France
Situated in a distinctly non-builtup area outside the city of Strasbourg. Poised between the suburbs and city
centre. A place for music which the most sophisticated connoisseurs describe as uncultured. A facility for
accommodating an audience of 10,000-12,000. A shrine to hip-hop and events belonging to the culture of people
living outside historical city centres. To be more precise, it was a question of creating a place for consecrating
new suburban cultures and new multi-ethnic languages. The Strasbourg Zenith is the beating heart of the
languages and dialects of outsiders. But it also belongs to those people who are part of the multitudes attending
the ritual performances of pop concerts and who follow the schedule of events, which see leading bands and the
world of show business shift from one side of Europe to the other. The Zenith is also a semicircular space in
which the closeness of people to each other transforms the events-crazy spectators into one single hub.
The Strasbourg Zenith, the biggest in France (Zenith is the name given to all these music facilities sharing the
same stylistic features and hence awarded the “Zenith Label”).
1. Landscape. As you drive along the motorway turnoff leading into the centre of Strasbourg the landscape you
see is totally unrecognizable and lacking in any striking features. Horizontality dominates everywhere. Traces of
vegetation probably call to mind small woodlands which have been wiped out down the years by farming and
rather unlikely constructions. This is what happens in the outskirts of the city of Strasbourg. A bourgeois city
poised between Germany and France. My grandmother’s home city, who was both German and Alsatian by birth.
As are all the inhabitants of the region, which is just a 5-minute drive from the border. Hardly surprisingly
Strasbourg is considered a European city. Home of the European Parliament, with Luxembourg and the
Netherlands just a few hundred kilometres away, as well as Switzerland. A very self-sufficient area, which, until
just a few months ago, was a long way from Paris but which now, thanks to the TGV, can be reached in three
hours. It has become a city connecting together the German and French high-speed railway networks. The
definitive passageway towards Eastern Europe. Strangely enough, it will in fact be Strasbourg with its high-speed
lines which will exclude Italy from the major routes of high-speed European trains.
2. A lamp. A strange orange-coloured object came to light in this horizontal landscape, more like a sculpture (or a
signal) than those rather arrogant stylistic designs usually associated with music and cultural facilities. If we begin
at the centre, the heart of the events space, then beyond the stands and the concrete we come to an interstitial
space preparing us for the outside environment. The orange-coloured fabric, composed of glass fibre with silicone
spread across two sides, is a transition and filter between the large 20 m high foyer with its steel structure and the
outside. This sculpture with distinctive non-parallel ring-shaped folds is opaque at daytime and almost
transparent at night-time. It turns into a magical lamp and makes the place stand out from all those non-places.
So the party can begin.
3. Geometry. The geometry of the Strasbourg Zenith derives from the rotating of two ovals generating a dynamic
form offering thousands of different viewpoints. Endless things can be said about its outside image, due to the fact
that it can be perceived in endless ways. The edge of the dramatically designed roof descends towards an
asymmetric oval. The foyer is another place for hosting events and meetings where people meet up before joining
in the collective rituals of lights, sounds and noises up on the giant stage. The Strasbourg Zenith as a striking
stage mechanism. This can be seen from the roof structure, made of beams ranging from 4-6 metres in height
and up to a maximum length of 110 metres, which combine to form a sort of bouquet in the middle. The pathways,
which radiate out at this height, also help the giant stage’s technological apparatus function smoothly.
4. Immaterial, empty, air. “From form to air”. The architecture of the modern movement was relentlessly based on
breaking with the style of the past. The end of a pseudo-classical sense of balance in the hope that time, space
and speed (film) could prepare the way to a brighter future.
The changes at the beginning of the 1980s and indeed architecture, which became conceptual and tended
towards the immaterial, was called into question just a few years later by an awareness that architecture itself is
not made of “solids” but is actually based on “emptiness”. For years emptiness became a sanctuary where all
leading architects were forced to sacrifice their hopes. In the case of the Strasberg Zenith, what sets the outside
fabric (measuring just a few millimetres) in a state of tension is “air” itself. Following intangibility and emptiness,
air now represents a final attempt to achieve abstraction and remove weight from architecture, but without
conceding anything in terms of stylishness and the quest for emotion.
In the wake of quantum physics, fractals and clouds, air is, rather absurdly, the most spectacular means
imaginable. And, in this case, it is the physical place where rings dance or, as somebody called them, hula hoops.
The Strasbourg Zenith is not interested in emptiness as an absolute value, but rather looks to the “middle” as an
invisible model for a stage where the real performers will be everybody in attendance.
The ritual has begun. The power of the lights enflames the spectators. An orange-coloured light shines in the
darkness to warm up those cold winter nights out in the Alsatian plains.
Massimiliano Fuksas
centre. A place for music which the most sophisticated connoisseurs describe as uncultured. A facility for
accommodating an audience of 10,000-12,000. A shrine to hip-hop and events belonging to the culture of people
living outside historical city centres. To be more precise, it was a question of creating a place for consecrating
new suburban cultures and new multi-ethnic languages. The Strasbourg Zenith is the beating heart of the
languages and dialects of outsiders. But it also belongs to those people who are part of the multitudes attending
the ritual performances of pop concerts and who follow the schedule of events, which see leading bands and the
world of show business shift from one side of Europe to the other. The Zenith is also a semicircular space in
which the closeness of people to each other transforms the events-crazy spectators into one single hub.
The Strasbourg Zenith, the biggest in France (Zenith is the name given to all these music facilities sharing the
same stylistic features and hence awarded the “Zenith Label”).
1. Landscape. As you drive along the motorway turnoff leading into the centre of Strasbourg the landscape you
see is totally unrecognizable and lacking in any striking features. Horizontality dominates everywhere. Traces of
vegetation probably call to mind small woodlands which have been wiped out down the years by farming and
rather unlikely constructions. This is what happens in the outskirts of the city of Strasbourg. A bourgeois city
poised between Germany and France. My grandmother’s home city, who was both German and Alsatian by birth.
As are all the inhabitants of the region, which is just a 5-minute drive from the border. Hardly surprisingly
Strasbourg is considered a European city. Home of the European Parliament, with Luxembourg and the
Netherlands just a few hundred kilometres away, as well as Switzerland. A very self-sufficient area, which, until
just a few months ago, was a long way from Paris but which now, thanks to the TGV, can be reached in three
hours. It has become a city connecting together the German and French high-speed railway networks. The
definitive passageway towards Eastern Europe. Strangely enough, it will in fact be Strasbourg with its high-speed
lines which will exclude Italy from the major routes of high-speed European trains.
2. A lamp. A strange orange-coloured object came to light in this horizontal landscape, more like a sculpture (or a
signal) than those rather arrogant stylistic designs usually associated with music and cultural facilities. If we begin
at the centre, the heart of the events space, then beyond the stands and the concrete we come to an interstitial
space preparing us for the outside environment. The orange-coloured fabric, composed of glass fibre with silicone
spread across two sides, is a transition and filter between the large 20 m high foyer with its steel structure and the
outside. This sculpture with distinctive non-parallel ring-shaped folds is opaque at daytime and almost
transparent at night-time. It turns into a magical lamp and makes the place stand out from all those non-places.
So the party can begin.
3. Geometry. The geometry of the Strasbourg Zenith derives from the rotating of two ovals generating a dynamic
form offering thousands of different viewpoints. Endless things can be said about its outside image, due to the fact
that it can be perceived in endless ways. The edge of the dramatically designed roof descends towards an
asymmetric oval. The foyer is another place for hosting events and meetings where people meet up before joining
in the collective rituals of lights, sounds and noises up on the giant stage. The Strasbourg Zenith as a striking
stage mechanism. This can be seen from the roof structure, made of beams ranging from 4-6 metres in height
and up to a maximum length of 110 metres, which combine to form a sort of bouquet in the middle. The pathways,
which radiate out at this height, also help the giant stage’s technological apparatus function smoothly.
4. Immaterial, empty, air. “From form to air”. The architecture of the modern movement was relentlessly based on
breaking with the style of the past. The end of a pseudo-classical sense of balance in the hope that time, space
and speed (film) could prepare the way to a brighter future.
The changes at the beginning of the 1980s and indeed architecture, which became conceptual and tended
towards the immaterial, was called into question just a few years later by an awareness that architecture itself is
not made of “solids” but is actually based on “emptiness”. For years emptiness became a sanctuary where all
leading architects were forced to sacrifice their hopes. In the case of the Strasberg Zenith, what sets the outside
fabric (measuring just a few millimetres) in a state of tension is “air” itself. Following intangibility and emptiness,
air now represents a final attempt to achieve abstraction and remove weight from architecture, but without
conceding anything in terms of stylishness and the quest for emotion.
In the wake of quantum physics, fractals and clouds, air is, rather absurdly, the most spectacular means
imaginable. And, in this case, it is the physical place where rings dance or, as somebody called them, hula hoops.
The Strasbourg Zenith is not interested in emptiness as an absolute value, but rather looks to the “middle” as an
invisible model for a stage where the real performers will be everybody in attendance.
The ritual has begun. The power of the lights enflames the spectators. An orange-coloured light shines in the
darkness to warm up those cold winter nights out in the Alsatian plains.
Massimiliano Fuksas
Product Spec Sheet
Were your products used?
Join as a manufacturer to add your products.