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Every new public building constructed in a city changes its image. A great deal of importance is therefore attached to its facades and outward appearance. And in such cases, the quality of the interior spaces can sometimes take a back seat, or not receive as much attention. On the contrary, we wanted them to be as high quality as the building itself: that the collective spaces, though very different, be strongly connected visually through the use of voids and transparency, and that wandering around play a major role in creating desires: why not move from the dance studio to the teaching kitchen? Why not learn how to make a stringed instrument? From the first floor, you can see the auditorium, and even the back of the auditorium is glazed, opening onto a garden where you can enjoy a drink.
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The building's facades, made of Paris limestone, blend into the surrounding color scheme without disturbing it, while allowing the cultural center to assert its status as a public building thanks to their play of modern volumes and generous transparencies. The site on which the center was to be built is highly unusual: L-shaped, it lies against an embankment over which the train passes. This embankment is like a folded landscape, which has the great advantage of offering wooded views of the various spaces and creating coolness. This topographical singularity was a challenge that enabled us to create a place turned towards an alcove of greenery right in the center of town.
The positioning of the building itself is a way of keeping it cool, as it takes advantage of the wooded slope, which provides coolness and shade. The unusual choice of a sliding bay window to close off the auditorium also allows users to create a draught to let in the cool air on summer days. Numerous noble and natural materials were also at the heart of this project: Paris limestone for the façade, wood (pine for the walls of the art room, and oak for the parquet flooring in the dance hall), cork for the wall covering and acoustics in the auditorium).
We paid particular attention to the quality of the collective spaces. In doing so, we placed the building’s entrance hall in the curve of the road so that the edifice’s two sections, following the plot’s shape, would join in an open space that would encourage encounters while offering views of the adjacent vegetation through glazing. The open spaces implicitly join the different rooms together to make them relate to each other better. The strangeness of the plot’s geometry prompted us to create an arrangement of oblique forms and folds that intertwine. The spaces interweave into each other and the elevations reflect this. Inside, a vast open space expands through three levels of the building, multiplying double heights, viewpoints, walkways and suspended spaces. This unifying area is like a point of reference at the heart of the project. The hall’s triple height captures sunlight, in spite of the embankment. It offers large-framed vistas of the sky and trees from its hallways, its upstairs walkways and its first-floor meet-up space. The façade’s windows create hollows in the limestone structure and put the project’s spatial and programmatic wealth on display. These huge windows reveal the programme’s generosity and suggest a project bathed in natural light and embellished with vegetation, crisscrossing views and unique atmospheres.
Customers describe the project in 3 words: Philippe Ancelin Deputy Mayor for Culture and Heritage “The three words to describe the Bourg-la-Reine cultural center are: beauty, conviviality and humanity.” Marinette Maignan President of the Cultural Centre “Beautiful, grand, eagerly awaited: it's the culmination of a dream that's lasted 30 years!” Patrick Donath Mayor of Bourg-la Reine “An avant-garde building, a human building, and a building for conviviality and living together.”
Located in the heart of Strasbourg, Dominique Coulon & Associés is a firm of architects of national and international renown.
For more than 25 years, the agency has earned a reputation for the quality of the public facilities it designs. It has worked on a wide and varied range of programmes, including a media library, music school, auditorium, school complex, swimming pool, sports facilities, a residential home for the dependent elderly, and housing.
Dominique Coulon and his associate Steve Letho Duclos allow their intuition to lead the way as they seek to develop contextual projects that combine contrast and complexity, where the outer envelope hints at inner richness. Spatial quality and natural light are fundamental elements in every project: space is always controlled by precise geometry.
The agency has received many awards and distinctions. In 2022, the French Academy of Architecture awards its Grand Gold Medal to Dominique Coulon.
