Apr 30–Jul 28, 2014

Bernard Tschumi

Address
Place Georges-Pompidou, 75191 Paris Map
Hours
Wed–Mon 11 am–9 pm

The exhibition—based on Bernard Tschumi's work as an architect, educator, and writer—explores the making of architecture as a series of arguments, ideas, influences, and responses to the contemporary definition of architecture today. Tschumi's major architectural projects are organized around two primary ideas and five themes. These primary ideas are concept and notation: there is no architecture without an idea orconcept, just as there is no architecture without a method of notation to express its content. Architecture is not a study of form, but rather a form of knowledge. The five thematic zones in the exhibition each propose a fundamental area in the definition of architecture. The themes are: Space and EventProgram and Superposition; Vectors and Envelopes;Context and Content; and Concept-forms. Tschumi illustrates these themes through a series of well-known and lesser-known projects, from the historic Parc de Ia Villette in Paris to later projects such as the Acropolis Museum in Athens, as well as the new architecture for the redesign for the Paris Zoological Park. Alongside the projects are a series of tables that extend and amplify the main narrative of the exhibition through topics related to architectural thought and production. The exhibition is the most complete display of Tschumi’s work to date, including 45 projects with over 350 drawings, sketches, collages, and models, many of them never shown previously, and is the first large exhibition of its kind organized in Europe.