Parisian architect Clément Blanchet of cBA has revealed his shortlisted proposal for the Pershing site in the Réinventer.paris competition. The competition sought designs to revive 23 sites throughout the city of Paris, giving designers the power to rethink and reshape the way Parisians live, work and play. All 23 winning projects were announced last week, with a design by Sou Fujimoto selected for the Pershing plot.
The overall strategy of the Pershing area involves linking La Défense with the central business district of Greater Paris, utilizing the under-used space between Porte Maillot and the Porte des Ternes next to the Palais des Congrès de Paris. cBA’s proposal involves covering the Parisian ring, creating a metropolitan space next to the convention centre at Pershing Square. The proposal, titled “Re-Invention”, creates urbanity, using the project’s size to reveal and discover the layers of history present in the city. From this history, the city is reborn, creating a new “cultural center of production”.
“In “réinventer paris” I was thinking about reinventing something which has vanished,” said Clément Blanchet.
From the architect: Rediscovering its historical tracks, we reanimated the city in this very rough neighborhood. Here, modernity is the result of a spontaneous process which extends the existing urban fabric (the base), and a new metropolitan piece (the hollow square).
The project considers in the same way past, present and future. Reinventing Paris is an act of memory - the memory of a country, a culture, of progress.
The site without clear boundary, unstable and tortured, is cut off from its immediate context by the roadway. Four specific actions are both revealing and healing this fracture.
- Connect the two existing fabrics
- Reveal the historical tracks
- Generate a metropolitan building
- Recreate a living place: an urban garden
The project is part of a comprehensive approach at the scale of the architecture, the neighborhood and the city.
The establishment of these four elements resonates beyond the project site boundaries and radiates throughout the town. The project will not be an isolated act. It offers an opened encounter place for the city.
All 23 winning proposals of the reinventer Paris competition can be viewed here.