| Several projects, built or in progress, distinguish themselves by their profound architectural and urban size. There is not, however, for Dominique Perrault, any specific problems of scale, or alternative thinking relative to such increased dimensions. These Grands projets can be considered manifest projects of his architecture.
They all create landscapes, not buildings.
They all are connected to geography, a site, and a history. And it is precisely these connections that generate a concept for each project.
They all reflect the notion of the disappearance of architecture. The vastness of site does not demand a greater response. To the contrary, for Dominique Perrault, the emptiness and the silence are the essential components of his architecture. These projects transform the landscape in which they are inscribed with minimal intervention, by reacting to what is not there, and the surrounding urban context that is.
In 1989, Dominique Perrault won the international competition for the French National Library in Paris, followed by the Velodrome and Olympic Swimming Pool in Berlin, Germany in 1996, the extension of the Court of Justice of the of the European Communities in Luxembourg in 2002, the master plan of the Donau City, new district of Vienna, and the Olympic centre of Tennis and redevelopment of the park of Manzanares in Madrid in 2003, and finally the new Mariinsky Theatre of St-Petersburg and the campus centre of the Ewha Womans University in Seoul in 2004. |
