Foro Normandie
What is the place we leave for uncontroled elements in architecture, and in which moment don't we consider it a failure?
Despite the absence of color -only a monotonous concrete gray that lives within-, Foro Normandie reminds me of a trip to India. Precisely to Chandigarh and its Capitol, created by the illustrious Le Corbusier when independence of India was proclaimed in 1950 and a place that since June 2016 has been added to the list of UNESCO world heritage sites.
For this occasion it is not Le Corbusier´s concrete to think of, but the garden located right behind Chandigarh, discovered by chance in a promenade to Nek Chand´s Rock Garden art piece.
Apart from the straight traces and perfect perspectives of Le Corbusier, Ned´s sculpture garden is dedicated to imperfection, a kind of reflection in negative of his Capitol neighbor.
We are talking about a garden elaborated with the construction waste of the perfect city of Le Corbusier, mixed with rocks of the Himalaya that arise from there, expressing a sort of art naïf aesthetic, a pile of accidents.
What is the place we leave for uncontroled elements in architecture and in which moment don't we consider it a failure? In Foro Normandie that was the objective: to experiment through the concrete textures leaving partially free the concrete pouring.
To present or argue a project based on a series of accidents might seem in disadvantage except when these accidents are valued and respected, elevating them to an aesthetic attribute.
Foro Normandie is a concrete unit located in the basement of an old downtown building in México City. In its old days, around 1940, it was a well-known restaurant & cabaret that carried the same name: Normandie (in french), disappearing in 1980 to leave place to the failure of downtown post earthquake.
As many other spots in the area, Normandie was transformed in a table dance of very poor reputation until its prohibition. Today it takes part as one more of the downtown building recovery projects.
The idea of the concert hall/forum is the mono materiality: the concrete leaving the space neutral for the artist to invade or even transform the space.
Before beginning the construction of the project it had only columns and ceilings of concrete, which immediately dictated the architectural party to follow: add more concrete to the concrete.
This project is and ode to failure, an applause to accident, a rejection to the false look and prejudice. An idea brought to México from a visit to India, countries that share the biggest failure in navigation, the one of Christopher Columbus.
