Review of Ryoji Ikeda: continuum

At the 40th anniversary of its inauguration, the Pompidou Centre represents by no doubts one of the most relevant achievements within the history of construction of the past century. Its realisation is the result of a unique joint venture between a young group of architects led by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers and the engineering team Structure 3 of Ove Arup composed, among the others, by Peter Rice, Edmund Happold and Lennart Grut. One of the key parts of the whole structure is the joint supporting the 48-meter span floor, realized in the form of the gerberette and fabricated in the special technique of steel cast. The first solution employed to solve the joint consisted of a friction collar supporting moving floors made of lattice girders, a powerful translation of the principle of flexibility the competition entry was rooted in. After renouncing to further develop the moving floor solution, architects and engineers undertook new studies in order to solve the connection between floors and the vertical structures. The lattice girders solution left the place to a composite Vierendeel truss joint to the vertical structure by the means of a secondary horizontal beam anchored to the internal and external poles of the façade. The complexity of the solution and the new restrictions imposed by the project’s budget led to another setback and further research were needed. The numerous solutions attempted in 1972 included the reduction of the Vierendeel truss, the transformation of the external poles into pre-tensed cables, the abandonment of the Vierendeel and the adoption of a cantilevered beam anchored to the vertical poles. Once identified as the definitive structural breakthrough, this cantilevered beam was submitted to a process of refinement and improvement that turned a first steel composite element into the monolithic sculptural piece that nowadays so distinctively characterizes the structure of the Centre Pompidou: the gerberette. In the last decades the value of this breakthrough seems to have overshadowed the complex process laying behind it. The aim of this contribution is both to reposition the gerberette as an arrival point of a complex evolutionary path and therefore to deepen each of the relevant stages which preceded and led to the gerberette’s design and fabrication. To achieve these objectives this contribution will resort to unpublished material preserved in public archives and private collections and will profit of a series of interviews with the protagonists of Beaubourg’s design and construction.

Journal of Architectural Education, 2006

This study investigates the gradual evolution of the idea of installation in three experimental exhibition pavilions designed before World War I by the German architect Bruno Taut. In collaboration with the critic Adolf Behne, Taut gradually transferred ideas from Expressionist painting to architecture and helped move his designs, and with it modern architecture more generally, from a focus on visual “objects,” to multisensory “experiences,” an idea that continues to resonate in modern installations today.

Journal of Near Architecture / Yakın Doğu Üniversitesi Yakın Mimarlık Dergisi , 2021

Centre Pompidou, designed by Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers, is a high-tech culture and art center in the old Beaubourg district which is located in the center of Paris. It is a large, multistorey building made of glass and metal structure, exposing all of its inner structures, systems, and escalators on its exterior. The stereotype of Centre Pompidou with the bright idea of architects, to place all usual building infrastructure and escalators on the exterior of the building, has brought a new concept to the modern museums. Thereby; a vast open space available inside, spread over seven floors, was left. There was a lot of controversy about the self-possessed industrial style of Centre Pompidou which multiplied from 1969 to 1977 during each phase of the project; its development and at the construction site, both in the press and among residents of the district. The debates were mostly about questioning the notion of culture and political issues. Although there was a lot of opposition in the beginning the public happily accepted this unique building to their identity. The impact of this futuristic culture and arts center that changed a slum district to a tourist attraction, its influence on other modern museums in the world as well as the criticisms about this building are evaluated in this study.

Vitruvio, 2023

PAOLA ARDIZZOLA. INTERVIEW WITH ZVI HECKER. MAY 2023 Zvi Hecker (Krakow, 1931) is a Polish -Israeli architect and artist. After the Second World War years spent with his family in Samarkand where he first approached architecture by sketching monumental Islamic buildings, he began his studies in architecture in Krakow and completed them at the Technion in Haifa, where he graduated in 1955. Later he studied painting at the Avni Academy of Fine Arts in Tel Aviv. From 1960, with an office in Tel Aviv and until 1966 in association with A. Neumann and E. Sharon he designed residential complexes, synagogues, schools, and administrative buildings. In Israel, Tel Aviv, he realised his most iconic building, the Spiral House (1984-’89). In 1991 he opened a second atelier in Berlin after winning the competition for the Heinz Galinski school, the first Jewish school in the city after the Shoah. In the same year he took part in the Venice Architecture Biennale, as well in the 1996 and 2000 editions. In 1996 he was awarded the Deutscher Kritikerpreis and in 1999 the Rechter Prize for architecture. He participated in numerous architectural competitions worldwide and built important buildings for the collectivity. Among others, the Koningin Máximakazerne, Airport Schiphol Headquarters for the Royal Dutch Police (Amsterdam, The Netherland, 2009–2018), the Palmach Museum of History (Tel-Aviv, Israel, 1993–1998), and the Jewish Cultural Center with Synagogue (Duisburg, Germany, 1997–2000). His works are exhibited in museums and art galleries, in Jewish Museum in Berlin, Pompidou Centre in Paris. He taught Architectural Design at Schools of Architecture in Québec, the United States, and Europe. Zvi Hecker lives and works in Berlin.

History of construction cultures: Proceedings of the 7th International Congress on Construction History (7ICCH 2021), 12–16 July 2021, Lisbon, Portugal, 2021

In the summer of 1971, Ove Arup & Partners and Piano+Rogers Architects presented to the French government what they called a "3-dimensional wall" as part of their project bid for the Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou in Paris. This would resolve structural and expressive questions and unite three elements in a spatial sequence. The architects imagined the 3-dimensional wall as a 3D sequence of screens that would create original and interactive effects. The engineers saw it as a structure that, described as "brut," aspired to become a manifesto for a new metal structure in cast steel. Through recourse to a systematic analysis of published and unpublished sources and of interviews with the architects, engineers and administrators involved in the project, this paper reconstructs the evolution of the Centre Pompidou's 3-dimensional wall from its initial conception to the gradual loss of its original layered structure.

Over the past decade, contemporary Belgian choreographer Frédéric Flamand has collaborated with several architectural and design practices on conceptualizing and realizing performances. These offered the architects a laboratory for intensive and focused exploration of space in relation to body, time, and perception. This article investigates the themes established as a common ground for three of the collaborative teams and the manner in which each participant investigated their own career-long, discipline-specific obsessions through the work. Furthermore, these collaborative projects are examined for their success at pushing beyond mere ''collages'' of dance and spatial décor, creating synthesized performance works.

Journal of Architectural Education, 2008

Over the past decade, contemporary Belgian choreographer Frédéric Flamand has collaborated with several architectural and design practices on conceptualizing and realizing performances. These offered the architects a laboratory for intensive and focused exploration of space in relation to body, time, and perception. This article investigates the themes established as a common ground for three of the collaborative teams and the manner in which each participant investigated their own career-long, discipline-specific obsessions through the work. Furthermore, these collaborative projects are examined for their success at pushing beyond mere ''collages'' of dance and spatial décor, creating synthesized performance works.