Laurent Salomon – Porch of Saint-Priest

PROJECT: Laurent Salomon – Porch of Saint-Priest

LOCATION: Saint-Priest (Rhône)

YEAR: 1990

ARCHITECT / FIRM: Atelier d'Architecture Rotbart et Salomon

BUYER: Ville de Saint-Priest

SURFACE: Public space: 10.000 sqm, Programme: 6.000 sqm

PRICE: € 12.000.000

DESCRIPTION:
In Saint-Priest, the existing urban form is the result of the perversion of the precepts of the Athens Charter. The programme includes only public or private equipment and integrates other existing equipment. The town hall is located in this place, the public space to be configured is the center of the municipality. The elements of the new programme are: a media library and the local tax office (public), a health centre, a cinema, a bank and a brewery (private), the mayor's office (public and symbolic). The existing buildings are the town hall and the post office. Everything is unified by a public porch

DESCRIPTION:
In the mid-1980s, Mitterrandian France imagined healing the "evil of the suburbs" by organizing a series of identity refounding projects born from the offer that imaginative architects could make to ambitious mayors. This operation will be called "Banlieue 89" in relation to the approach of the bicentenary of the French Revolution. It is the first time since the post-war reconstruction that the question of the urban form has been offered as a potential remedy to the social consequences of purely administrative urban planning, which has been imposed for 35 years and which is only a perversion of the precepts of the Athens Charter. In this political context, the Lyon metropolitan area made famous by the riots in Vaux en Velin has been at the forefront of these proposals, supported by the effective cooperation of the urban planning agency of the agglomeration (COURLY). Our workshop presented two proposals that were accepted by the Mayors, one for the City of Saint-Priest, the other for the City of Meyzieu. These two proposals are based on the invention of a large collective space to reshape urban identity. It is these two operations that are in close contact that we present here. This presentation concerns the Porch of Saint-Priest. In Saint-Priest, the pre-existing urbane form and the result of this highest remembered perversion. The program includes only public or private equipment and integrates other existing equipment. The town hall sitting on this site, the public space to be configured is the center of the municipality. The elements of the new programme are: a media library and the local tax office (public), a health centre, a cinema, a bank and a brewery (private), the mayor's office (public and symbolic). The existing buildings are the town hall and the post office. All this is unified by a public portico.

DESCRIPTION:
In this case, the project is initiated by the municipal authorities. The program is finalized with the local mixed economy society that finances the private parties to rent them. The other structures are financed in various proportions by the various local authorities concerned.

- SURFACE present EXTENSION,

PREVALENT CONSERVATION / CONTINUITY: The overall dimensions increase moderately with respect to the pre-existing surface.

- VOLUME present NO VARIATION,

TOTAL CONSERVATION / CONTINUITY: The overall dimensions are equal to the pre-existing volume.

DESCRIPTION:
This project manages a large urban space in relation to the density of the local urban fabric. The development of the portico runs along 230 linear metres. The programs are fixed along this architectural line with discontinuities at ground level that are erased from the continuous attic whose program covers 90% of the length of the project. Compared with this spatial development, the proposed area of use of 6.000 is very small and highlights the symbolic function of the continuity achieved. On the other hand, the public square that is an integral part of the project covers an area of 10.000 square meters.

DESCRIPTION:
This project manages a large urban space in relation to the density of the local urban fabric. The development of the portico runs along 230 linear metres. The programs are fixed along this architectural line with discontinuities at ground level that are erased from the continuous attic whose program covers 90% of the length of the project. Compared with this spatial development, the proposed area of use of 6 000 m2 is very small and highlights the symbolic function of the continuity achieved. On the other hand, the public square that is an integral part of the project covers an area of 10,000 square meters.

DESCRIPTION:
In Saint-Priest, the immediate environment consists mainly of private condominiums housing the exploded people of social housing complexes. The buildings occupy their plots regardless of the design of the streets in the area. The two public buildings (town hall and post office) are in the same layout. The Portico project is insinuated between the two facilities by developing a "pillar-beam" system with the exception of one of the anchored ends.

DESCRIPTION:
The urban form proposed and conceived as an element that makes you forget the path of the streets. Each program of the project finds its type in its need, but houses the layer along the square to the architecture of the Porch. The time that separates the construction of the porch and the construction of the previous equipment is not enough to upset the use of materials. What evolves is limited to implementation. The particularity of the work limits the use of prefabrication and strikes it down to the concrete elements that cover the linear part of the structure as well as the raw concrete that is shown to enhance the structure. In contrast to nearby constructions using PVC or aluminium, the openings are equipped with steel frames. This choice expresses the timelessness of the project idea.

DESCRIPTION:
This project is the first realization to emerge from a theoretical position on the pre-eminence of topology over the other protagonists of architectural work: history, economics, technology. The proposed thesis establishes that only the topological organization is able to structure the architect's story. In this, it is the potential form that represents the ἀρχός/ή of the project, in contrast to the τέκτων that would be the construction technique and functional obligations. In the development of this urban system, we have chosen the narrative of the collective part of social practices. Therefore, the representation of the collective dominates the composition and the architectural theme of the porch which allows the recognition that this collective is both the subject and the object of the work.