Euralille City Masterplan

Euralille is an interesting case study of master planning that I looked analysed for design Studio. The following are key factors of the city design.

Bigness

The immense scale of the master-plan eliminates the possibility of doing an iconic building or a building so big that would resolve all the problems. The big scale of the project in a certain way obliges diversity to be the key element of the master plan.

Local/Global

Acknowledging multiple scale context in which the master plan sits, it can be read locally and globally. Locally in the sense that the master plan resolves traffic flows of Lille by creating a strategic knot of diverse transports. The knot can also be understood as a knot whose importance is not anymore local but also global. This is due to the fact that Euralille serves as a station to the TGV and is the main stop if one comes to France from England.

Heterogeneity and Multiplicity

In Rem Koolhaas’s master plan none of the buildings can be understood as independent. Each intervention is interpreted in terms of others and the strong relations that the diverse flows impose. The uniformity or gathering force of the master plan is given by system of objects and not by an iconic building. The big scale of the project is the one that prescribes heterogeneity and multiplicity to become the unifying factors.

Flows

Euralille can be understood as a project in which flow, dynamism, or simply traffic reorganization are in the core of the project. In a certain way Euralille gives a new alternative way of thinking a contemporary city. A new part of city which can have a dialogue with many types of traffic flows. In fact, Euralille could be understood as a part of city and at a contemporary time as a station in which both elements work in a harmonious way. Such is the harmony that it’s very hard to imagine one without the other.

The position of the Triangle des Gares is defined by the railways as well as the set of high rise buildings are placed to accompany the flow of the highway. The will of letting avenue Le Corbusier pass between the park and Triangle des Garres again confirms the design consideration for flows.

Relational Centre

An interesting aspect about Euralille is that it works as a new centre within Lille and subsequently in a global scale. One could think that new centres have the risk of becoming autonomous and not have a relationship with the old urban fabric. Instead, Euralille works as a centre which contributes to the energy of Lille by being penetrated by various traffic and pedestrian systems.

Dense and Open

The contrast which exists between the densification of “Triangle des Gares” and the openness of the park balance out and work together rendering even more obvious elements such as heterogeneity and multiplicity. A flow also exists between the mega-building of Nouvel and the park of Gilles Clément in which one is attracted by the diverse volumetric grammar that each of these places has. An intermediate or mediator point is achieved with the boulevard Le Corbusier by François Deslaugiers. The viaduct serves as a “belt” which controls like a damn does with water in this case the level of relation between the park and the very dense volume of shops, offices and homes.

The Grand Palais designed by OMA expresses its denseness and openness in two levels. A building which contains an exhibition hall, a congress hall, and a concert hall which is read as one when seen from the exterior. This building develops a logic in which the building becomes an interior of the master plan and an exterior of the building itself. This external and internal relationship repeats itself again in the building itself. One could say the Grand Palais has an interior master plan which is made out of different elements but from the exterior it can be read as a whole.

In the plan, the three parts are clearly divided but it’s also clear that the external facade unifies the separate elements and presents them as one to the exterior. Another interesting aspect about the building’s facade is its apparent solidness. At night all the solidness that exists during the day disappears and the building becomes “alive”, revealing its internal functions.

Conclusion

Euralille is an evident example of how diverse scales and dynamics can be combined in order to create architecture that can respond in a harmonious way to the problematic areas that arise from a given territorial context.