Guillaume Grégoire : Market on the railways
  • Slideshow
  • Mosaic
Situation plan
Situation plan
Ground plan
South-West site axonometry
North-West site axonometry
North-East site axonometry
South-East site axonometry
South-West site axonometry
Territorial section
Ground plan : during market day
Ground plan : during the night
Ground plan : North branch
Ground plan : South branch
Roof plan
Atlas of plan
Two shores separated by the railway
Following the path of the rails, a dock and a unified floor create links between different entities
Zoom in[+]
Zoom out[-]
A series of porticos delimit the market space
A brick wall cut this space in diagonal, creating an inside and an outside
Two lines of technical rooms ensure the right functionnement of the market
Zoom in[+]
Zoom out[-]
Inside stalls appears and delimit the different paths of circulation in the building
Zoom in[+]
Zoom out[-]
Behing the wall, the temporary market occupies the covered square
Roof structure covers these two markets, creating continuity between the two markets
The two branches of the project converges to the central point, the tower distributing the other shore
Axonometric section
Perspective section : from the train to the stall
Zoom in[+]
Zoom out[-]
Street elevation : converging to the center
Zoom in[+]
Zoom out[-]
Platform elevation
Section detail
Terracotta used in many forms
Discovering the market through the park
The market and the products unfold under the roof
Inside, the diagonal shows the food on the stalls
The footbridge, pivot of the building
Close
Close

According to John Cage, “an experimental action” is one “the outcome of which is not foreseen.” Titling this course Architecture & Experience celebrates on the one hand its attachment to the question of high architecture as a discipline forged in historical and theoretical projects and, on the other, the experimental nature of an explorative approach that has been an operative concept of said discipline ever since the Renaissance – explorative, but still grounded in concrete reality.

Theory, by identifying the working principles defining architectonic forms along time, makes possible every kind of parallel while transforming every sort of question into potential architectural problematics. This is our main field of exploration.

Theory allows us to write the narrative that defines the rules of the project on the one hand and give it a mean on the other hand. Reason helps us to imagine narratives that, considering the rules of nature and reality, allow us to justify from a rational point of view disposals that would be irrational in a different conceptual context. Thus we can succeed in building dreams from the ordinary condition.

Athens is a condensator of the most glorious Antique European architecture and of the almost non planned urban forms of today that makes of it a laboratory for exploring the contemporary status of architecture and city. As usual, students have not traveled to Athens, to work more from the imaginary of the city than from its reality.