The Maison de l'Économie Créative et de la Culture or MÉCA is Bordeaux's newest cultural hub. Costing €60m, the site will house a performing arts center, a creative agency for books, cinema, and audiovisual media as well as housing three prestigious French associations the ALCA, OARA, and FRAC regional art center. When BIG and Paris-based architecture firm FREAKS were chosen for the project in 2012, both studios devised a plan to construct a structure that would connect three art institutions to create the ultimate contemporary hub for multi-disciplinary practice in Bordeaux's Nouvelle-Aquitaine.
MÉCA is a waterfront venue fit for visitors to enjoy a celebration of art, film, and performance. The center embodies a flowing structural loop connecting each institute. According to a recent press release by BIG, "The building is conceived as a single loop of cultural institutions and public space by extruding the pavement of the promenade to become the ramp that leads into the urban living room, the façade with glimpses into the stage towers of OARA and the offices of ALCA, and the rooftop enclosing the sky-lit galleries of FRAC."
Rhythmic in design the structure consists of steps and ramps which guide visitors throughout the site, creating an engaging indoor and outdoor experience. The facade is made of prefabricated concrete panels with windows of varying sizes dispersed throughout the building. At 12,000sq m, the large rectangular shaped volume consists of an open public space that cuts through the center.
According to Bjarke Ingels, "When a region or a city invests millions in a major new cultural institution, it often ends up benefiting only the informed few that already have an interest in the arts. Not only does MÉCA spill its activities into the public realm and the urban room, but the public is also invited to walk around, through, above and below the new cultural gateway. By inviting the arts into the city and the city into the arts, MÉCA will provide opportunities for new hybrids of cultural and social life beyond the specific definitions of its constituent parts.”
6 Comments
could they not afford a landscape architect for this project?
Seriously.
don't they have an in-house LA? wasn't that girl that somebody was trying to shame for not being licensed in the us or something?
Hey look it’s a CULTURAL HUB everybody. Can’t you just feel the culture
Culture, not just a r eflection anymore.
For those who think culture can be packaged in a zippy design.
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