Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre

Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre

Renzo Piano Building Workshop

Nouméa,

New Caledonia

1991-1998

Photo: (1)

The Jean Marie Tjibaou Centre for Kanak culture was designed by the Renzo Piano Workshop and is located in Nouméa, the capital of the French island colony of New Caledonia in the South Pacific. Included in this centre are facilities for permanent and temporary exhibitions, interior and exterior performance spaces, a multi-media library, and a thematic landscape (8).

Photo: Shigeo Ogawa/ Shinkenchiku-sha (8)

View from east

Despite its tourist appeal as an island paradise destination, the motive behind the establishment of this cultural centre was political. Jean Marie Tjibaou was the leader of the New Caledonian independence movement who aspired to restore the culture of the indigenous Kanak people. He was assassinated in 1989, and the French government and the Kanak worked together towards creating this cultural centre in his name. Preservation and development of the Kanak culture were some of the concessions made by the French government as negotiations proceeded on a peaceful course toward autonomy.

Sketch by Renzo Piano

“The return to tradition is a myth… No people has ever achieved that. The search for identity, for a model, I believe lies before us… Our identity is before us.”

- Jean Marie Tjibaou (2)

Photo: (1)

The building must be in harmony with its users… When you make the effort to build harmonious buildings, they are almost automatically sustainable too.

- Renzo Piano

Renzo Piano was able to distill the essence of the island locale - its genius loci, and his architectural vision is a based on a thorough study of the patterns of life and culture of this South Pacific island. By integrating elements suggestive of the vernacular, he has been able to successfully create a modern architecture which may be seen as a contemporary version of the traditional Kanak village. His interpretation using modern building techniques, environmental engineering methods, and new material technologies comes from a thorough study of local building methods.


Photo: (1)

Piano sketch of traditional huts.

In an attempt to create pleasant, energy efficient spaces in the hot climate of the locale, Piano used passive rather than active environmental devices. The regional indigenous hut called a case served as the inspiration for the architecture of the Jean Marie Tjibaou Centre, but stainless steel construction and laminated Iroko wood strips were used instead of the traditional layering of leaves.

Site plan

This hut is like ours, before we put the thatched roof on it…

This is not us anymore, but it’s still us.

- Kanak elder

Eternity is not the building itself, but the way of building it.

- William Vassal

West elevation

The trade winds blowing from the east are an important factor in the design of this facility. In the traditional case horizontally placed leaves serve to decrease wind speeds, which vary in intensity from very light to cyclone strength during the year, while at the same time passively ventilating the interior of the case. The Renzo Piano Workshop created a hybrid double skin technology which addressed these environmental variations using modern building techniques. The wooden screens not only harmonize with the landscape and local building traditions, but also serve as regulators of the internal environment. Visually, the cultural centre dissolves into the landscape as the distance between the horizontal wood strips on the outer façade increases upwards.

Photo: (8)

Natural ventilation configurations under variable wind conditions

Photo: (8)

Section

The final design configuration located ten, various-sized cases facing the eastern trade winds. An open, chimney-like space was created between the curved, outer wooden façade and the vertical, glazed inner façade. On the west side, the roofs were held level and the rise and fall of the site was used for floor-level variations, creating the necessary volumes of the building. “The convex shape of the screen diverts wind over the building, producing a partial vacuum in the chimney which effectively sucks the air out of the museum. When the wind is calm, however, the warm air of the interior rises by convection and escapes through the chimney (2)”.


Photo: (8)

Data

Dimensions of the 10 cases:

Size: Small Medium Large

Number: 4 3 3

Diameter: 9m 11m 13.5m

Surface area: 63m2 95m2 140m2

Height: 20m 22m 28m

Total built surface area: (main building plus cases) 7650m2


Axonometric of joint to curved rib

Detailed plan of paired ribs

Photo: (8)

Photo: (8)

“… a double structure has been used: the air circulates freely between the cladding of the external bowed and the vertical skin. The openings in the outer shell have been arranged to exploit the ‘trade’ winds coming from the sea, or to induce the desired convection currents.” - Renzo Piano

Analysis of a Large Case

“The winds are brought into the interior and out through upper sections of the cases on the east and the patios on the west. The shaped screen conducts the wind over the ‘chimney’, causing a slight lowering of air pressure. Whenever a strong wind blows, the top window at the front of the building is opened, so that the air is extracted from the museum by the passing wind.”

Photo: (8)

Louvred walls of lower elements allow cross ventilation.

Louvres in the openings function not only to control light but also to control the convection currents.

“The flows of air are regulated mechanically by ‘nacos’ (louvred windows). When there is a light breeze they open up to allow ventilation. As the wind grows stronger they close, starting with the ones at the bottom. The system was designed with the aid of computers and scale models tested in a wind tunnel. This system for air circulation also gives the cases a ‘voice’. Together they make a distinctive noise, a sound: it is that of the Kanak villages and their forests.” - Renzo Piano

Photo: Shigeo Ogawa/ Shinkenchiku-sha(8)

Inside one of the cases. They are of three types: for display (as here), performance, and study (8).

Café in a large size case

“Strikingly, what people find comfortable is often energy efficient too. Large windows you can open: not only do they give the users a good view of the outside world, but they also admit light, fresh air and heat. Tall, light spaces: people like oversized spaces, so it doesn’t make sense to build false ceilings. Moreover, they let you take better advantage of the building’s thermal mass.” - Renzo Piano


Criteria:

Daylighting: Yes

Shading: Yes

Adaptability to various orientations: Yes

User control: Yes

Ventilation: Passive only

Climate: Hot

Aesthetics: Wood and steel structure with glass infill

Cost: 200 million French francs

Overall thickness of wall: Variable (approximately 1-2m)


Analysis The hybrid double skin façade of the Jean Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre is a very effective environmental skin structure with several benefits over a typical double skin façade. Advantages 1) Passive ventilation which utilizes natural wind conditions to cool the internal environment. 2) The architecture exemplifies the remarkable synthesis of cultural and environmental conditions that celebrates Renzo Piano’s vision and the genius loci of New Caledonia. The formal resolution of the architecture uses modern building technology to create a continuation of the Kanak culture, while at the same time addressing the biophysical and psycho-cultural needs of its users. Bibliography 1. Davey, Peter, ed. Cultural Centre Jean Marie Tjibaou: Renzo Piano Building Workshop. The Architectural Review, 1998 : 12. 2. Melet, Ed. Sustainable Architecture Towards a Diverse Built Environment. Rotterdam: NAI Publishers, 1999. Presents a view of sustainable architecture as a ‘blend of architectural and energy- efficient qualities’ and argues for a new type of urban development condition where buildings have to be ‘energy-generating, active controllers of conditions instead of the static climatic receivers that today’s buildings normally are.’ 3. Piano, Renzo. Renzo Piano Logbook. New York: The Monacelli Press, 1997. 4. Piano, Renzo. Renzo Piano 1987-1994. Boston: Birkhäuser Verlag, 1995. 5. Renzo Piano Workshop Foundation: www.rpwf.org/drawings/ber42.dwf 6. Renzo Piano Workshop Foundation: www.arplus.co.uk/archive/piano/piano.html 7. Renzo Piano Workshop Foundation: www.renzopiano.it/frame_works.htm 8. Yoshida, Nobuyuki, ed. Cultural Centre Jean Marie Tjibaou: Renzo Piano Building Workshop. Architecture and Urbanism, 1998 : 08.

Documents

Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre