Download Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre Renzo Piano Building

Jean-Marie
Tjibaou Cultural
Centre
Nouméa,
New Caledonia
1991-1998
Renzo Piano Building
Workshop
Photo: (1)
The Jean Marie Tjibaou Centre for Kanak
culture was designed by the Renzo Piano
Workshop and is located in Nouméa, the
capital of the French island colony of New
Caledonia in the South Pacific. Included in
this centre are facilities for permanent and
temporary exhibitions, interior and exterior
performance spaces, a multi-media library,
and a thematic landscape (8).
Photo: Shigeo Ogawa/ Shinkenchiku-sha (8)
Photo: (1)
View from east
Despite its tourist appeal as an island paradise destination, the motive behind the
establishment of this cultural centre was political. Jean Marie Tjibaou was the
leader of the New Caledonian independence movement who aspired to restore
the culture of the indigenous Kanak people. He was assassinated in 1989, and
the French government and the Kanak worked together towards creating this
cultural centre in his name. Preservation and development of the Kanak culture
were some of the concessions made by the French government as negotiations
proceeded on a peaceful course toward autonomy.
“The return to tradition is a myth…
No people has ever achieved that.
The search for identity, for a
model, I believe lies before us…
Our identity is before us.”
- Jean Marie Tjibaou (2)
Sketch by Renzo Piano
Photo: (1)
The building must be in harmony
with its users… When you make
the effort to build harmonious
buildings, they are almost
automatically sustainable too.
- Renzo Piano
Renzo Piano was able to distill the
essence of the island locale - its
genius loci, and his architectural
vision is a based on a thorough
study of the patterns of life and
culture of this South Pacific island.
By integrating elements suggestive
of the vernacular, he has been able
to successfully create a modern
architecture which may be seen as a
contemporary version of the
traditional Kanak village.
His interpretation using modern
building techniques, environmental
engineering methods, and new
material technologies comes from a
thorough study of local building
methods.
Photo: Shigeo Ogawa/ Shinkenchiku-sha (8)
Site plan
Piano sketch of traditional huts.
In an attempt to create pleasant, energy efficient spaces in the hot
climate of the locale, Piano used passive rather than active
environmental devices. The regional indigenous hut called a case
served as the inspiration for the architecture of the Jean Marie Tjibaou
Centre, but stainless steel construction and laminated Iroko wood strips
were used instead of the traditional layering of leaves.
This hut is like ours,
before we put the thatched
roof on it…
This is not us anymore,
but it’s still us.
- Kanak elder
Eternity is not the building
itself, but the way of
building it.
- William Vassal
West elevation
Photo: (8)
The trade winds blowing from the east are an important factor in the design of
this facility. In the traditional case horizontally placed leaves serve to decrease
wind speeds, which vary in intensity from very light to cyclone strength during the
year, while at the same time passively ventilating the interior of the case. The
Renzo Piano Workshop created a hybrid double skin technology which
addressed these environmental variations using modern building techniques.
The wooden screens not only harmonize with the landscape and local building
traditions, but also serve as regulators of the internal environment. Visually, the
cultural centre dissolves into the landscape as the distance between the
horizontal wood strips on the outer façade increases upwards.
Natural ventilation
configurations under variable
wind conditions
Photo: (8)
Section
Photo: (8)
The final design configuration
located ten, various-sized cases
facing the eastern trade winds. An
open, chimney-like space was
created between the curved, outer
wooden façade and the vertical,
glazed inner façade. On the west
side, the roofs were held level and
the rise and fall of the site was
used for floor-level variations,
creating the necessary volumes of
the building.
“The convex shape of the screen
diverts wind over the building,
producing a partial vacuum in the
chimney which effectively sucks
the air out of the museum. When
the wind is calm, however, the
warm air of the interior rises by
convection and escapes through
the chimney (2)”.
Photo: Shigeo Ogawa/ Shinkenchiku-sha (8)
Data
Dimensions of the 10 cases:
Size:
Small
Medium
Large
Number:
4
3
3
Diameter:
9m
11m
13.5m
Surface area:
63m2
95m2
140m2
Height:
20m
22m
28m
Total built surface area: (main building plus cases) 7650m2
Photo: Shigeo Ogawa/ Shinkenchiku-sha (8)
“… a double structure has been used: the
air circulates freely between the cladding of
the external bowed and the vertical skin.
The openings in the outer shell have been
arranged to exploit the ‘trade’ winds
coming from the sea, or to induce the
desired convection currents.”
Axonometric of joint to
curved rib
Photo: (8)
- Renzo Piano
Detailed plan of paired ribs
Photo: (8)
Analysis of a Large Case
“The winds are brought into
the interior and out through
upper sections of the cases
on the east and the patios
on the west. The shaped
screen conducts the wind
over the ‘chimney’, causing
a slight lowering of air
pressure. Whenever a
strong wind blows, the top
window at the front of the
building is opened, so that
the air is extracted from the
museum by the passing
wind.”
Photo: (8)
Louvres in the openings
function not only to control light
but also to control the
convection currents.
“The flows of air are regulated mechanically
by ‘nacos’ (louvred windows). When there
is a light breeze they open up to allow
ventilation. As the wind grows stronger
they close, starting with the ones at the
bottom. The system was designed with the
aid of computers and scale models tested in
a wind tunnel. This system for air
circulation also gives the cases a ‘voice’.
Together they make a distinctive noise, a
sound: it is that of the Kanak villages and
their forests.”
- Renzo Piano
Louvred walls of lower elements
allow cross ventilation.
Photo: Shigeo Ogawa/ Shinkenchiku-sha(8)
“Strikingly, what people find comfortable
is often energy efficient too. Large
windows you can open: not only do they
give the users a good view of the
outside world, but they also admit light,
fresh air and heat. Tall, light spaces:
people like oversized spaces, so it
doesn’t make sense to build false
ceilings. Moreover, they let you take
better advantage of the building’s
thermal mass.”
- Renzo Piano
Inside one of the cases. They
are of three types: for display (as
here), performance, and study (8).
Café in a large size case
Photo: Shigeo Ogawa/ Shinkenchiku-sha(8)
Criteria:
Daylighting: Yes
Shading: Yes
Photo: Shigeo Ogawa/ Shinkenchiku-sha(8)
Adaptability to various orientations: Yes
User control: Yes
Ventilation: Passive only
Climate: Hot
Aesthetics: Wood and steel structure with glass infill
Cost: 200 million French francs
Overall thickness of wall: Variable (approximately 1-2m)
Analysis
The hybrid double skin façade of the Jean Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre is a very
effective environmental skin structure with several benefits over a typical double
skin façade.
Advantages
1) Passive ventilation which utilizes natural wind conditions to cool the internal
environment.
2) The architecture exemplifies the remarkable synthesis of cultural and
environmental conditions that celebrates Renzo Piano’s vision and the genius
loci of New Caledonia. The formal resolution of the architecture uses modern
building technology to create a continuation of the Kanak culture, while at the
same time addressing the biophysical and psycho-cultural needs of its users.
Bibliography
1. Davey, Peter, ed. Cultural Centre Jean Marie Tjibaou: Renzo Piano
Building Workshop. The Architectural Review, 1998 : 12.
2. Melet, Ed. Sustainable Architecture Towards a Diverse Built
Environment. Rotterdam: NAI Publishers, 1999.
Presents a view of sustainable architecture as a ‘blend of architectural and energyefficient qualities’ and argues for a new type of urban development condition where
buildings have to be ‘energy-generating, active controllers of conditions instead of the
static climatic receivers that today’s buildings normally are.’
3. Piano, Renzo. Renzo Piano Logbook.
New York: The Monacelli Press, 1997.
4. Piano, Renzo. Renzo Piano 1987-1994.
Boston: Birkhäuser Verlag, 1995.
5. Renzo Piano Workshop Foundation: www.rpwf.org/drawings/ber42.dwf
6. Renzo Piano Workshop Foundation:
www.arplus.co.uk/archive/piano/piano.html
7. Renzo Piano Workshop Foundation: www.renzopiano.it/frame_works.htm
8. Yoshida, Nobuyuki, ed. Cultural Centre Jean Marie Tjibaou: Renzo Piano
Building Workshop. Architecture and Urbanism, 1998 : 08.