Degree Show Annotation – Stage 3
Name: Jing Olyvia Tam
Title: Reframing Île de la Cité through the exploration of its medieval Parisian landscape
Description: This project’s line of inquiry surrounds integrating and highlighting the medieval Parisian landscape on Île de la Cité by designing a National Centre of Heritage and Preservation of France. Due to Georges-Eugène Haussmann’s reconstructions during the French Revolution in the 1800s, the island had transformed into a ‘display’ island, pushing away locals and creating a strained relationship between locals and tourists. The demolishment of traditional Parisian streets and buildings to create large boulevards, procession walks, and squares to isolate monuments as a means to revere it, introduced a new arrangment to the island’s urban landscape, and left a small fraction retaining the medieval structure. This ultimately led to a blatant separation between the two urban landscapes. Hence, this project aims to connect the two, in particular paying homage to the features of the medieval landscape. This is achieved through the heritage center’s form, which integrates medieval Paris’ narrow walkways, central courtyards and atriums, in conjunction with the multiple access routes leading into the site. A relationship with the Notre Dame cathedral is also established through structure and materiality – the façade of the heritage center references the repetive linearity and structural arrangement of the cathedral’s flying buttresses. The center’s staggered levels correspond to surrounind building heights, further blending in with the existing urban fabric. Ultimately, this project aims to shed light on the medieval Parisian urban landscape and emphasize its cultural signficance.
Link: https://olyvia-tam.format.com/
Contact Details: olyviatam0514@gmail.com