8/10 - wrong poll
Multi-Purpose Hall | Aurillac, France
London architects Brisac Gonzalez have completed a multi-purpose hall at Aurillac in France.The space can be used for concerts, sports events, trade shows and theatrical productions.
Aurillac is at the edge of France’s Massif Central mountain region. The site is situated near the city’s main train station, an area that is under regeneration to provide a stronger link with the city’s historic centre.
The building is a new venue for theatre, concerts, fairs and sports events. It will contain retractable seating and demountable stage for versatility. The main space will be able to accommodate up to 4500 people during performances.
Three ribbons of concrete that vary in shape and texture define the building. Their juxtaposition delineates the different zones of the building: entry, storage and back of house facilities.
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In contrast to the complexity of the brief for its debut project, the architectural challenge presented by Le Prisme was extremely contained.
The building is essentially a scaled-down Zénith, the multi-purpose auditorium — such as Bernard Tschumi’s buildings in Limoges and Rouen, and Foster & Partners’ soon-to-be-completed project in Saint Etienne — that nearly every major French city can now claim.
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Le Prisme is designed to accommodate up to 4,500 people standing and 2,500 people sitting — about 60% of the capacity of the average Zénith. In pursuit of maximum flexibility, the 40m-wide by 60m-long, column-free space is essentially a generic black box environment.
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The geometry is unwaveringly orthogonal. Seating is retractable and the stage can be dismantled. Articulated lorries can drive into the hall to unload stage equipment or a trade fair’s partitions and displays.
The building is essentially a scaled-down Zénith, the multi-purpose auditorium — such as Bernard Tschumi’s buildings in Limoges and Rouen, and Foster & Partners’ soon-to-be-completed project in Saint Etienne — that nearly every major French city can now claim.
Le Prisme is designed to accommodate up to 4,500 people standing and 2,500 people sitting — about 60% of the capacity of the average Zénith. In pursuit of maximum flexibility, the 40m-wide by 60m-long, column-free space is essentially a generic black box environment.
The geometry is unwaveringly orthogonal. Seating is retractable and the stage can be dismantled. Articulated lorries can drive into the hall to unload stage equipment or a trade fair’s partitions and displays.
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Thread title and poll fixed. 
SITUATION PLAN
The Brisac Gonzalez design, which was realized in December, comprises three volumes that Gonzalez refers to as ribbons, and which total approximately 56,700 square feet. Although these forms do not echo the mountainscape literally, they evoke the tectonics that produced Massif Central. In plan, the entryway is reminiscent of a plume, emerging from the building base and fanning outward; the base itself is rectilinear, and contains the auditorium as well as storage and back-of-house spaces like the loading dock. Above this pairing sits the third volume, representing the double-height volume of the 4,500-seat auditorium. This form bows slightly inward on its sides, and the architects shifted it from center, creating a slight tension by cantilevering it from the plinth asymmetrically.
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“I would say that we like to challenge accepted building typologies,” Gonzalez says of his studio’s growing portfolio of work. That is also the case with Aurillac, he explains. “It is often the case that these types of buildings are characterized by a single expressive gesture usually legible from afar. Yet closer, these buildings reveal little else—they often lack articulation. We wanted the building to read at different scales. The ribbons articulate the building’s ‘natural heroic scale’ from afar, while the shape and textures of the ribbons give the building a different reading at close range.”
“I would say that we like to challenge accepted building typologies,” Gonzalez says of his studio’s growing portfolio of work. That is also the case with Aurillac, he explains. “It is often the case that these types of buildings are characterized by a single expressive gesture usually legible from afar. Yet closer, these buildings reveal little else—they often lack articulation. We wanted the building to read at different scales. The ribbons articulate the building’s ‘natural heroic scale’ from afar, while the shape and textures of the ribbons give the building a different reading at close range.”
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The image brought to mind is that of sails pulled taut — a gesture oriented inward, in marked contrast to the rangy projections of the lower level. Driving around the site, the restless interplay of the two geometries proves particularly animated. This is a building conceived to be read at distance and at speed.
It is at night that this characteristic is felt most vividly. Coloured lights set behind the GRC sheath transform the building into a beacon. The pyramidal glass bricks amplify the level of illumination much like the Fresnel lenses of a lighthouse, while the dark painted concrete of the lower level recedes from view. The acts booked to perform at Le Prisme are nothing if not diverse — French black metal group Astaroth one night, the Glenn Miller tribute band the next. The provision of 24 circuits allows the coloured lights to be programmed in hundreds of combinations, allowing the building to be customised in response to whoever is using it.
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VERY COOL DETAILS
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