nathan
cilona
info
200 plan libre : anatomy of an architectural journal
plan libre 200 : neither building nor demolishing
plan libre 198 : happy medieval time
plan libre 197 : tinies
plan libre 196 : roundabouts
plan libre 195 : disappointment of the form
new fictions for architecture
architecture’s photogenicity at the instagram era
altered memory of space
[coll.] synopsis
juliette picherit, portfolio
atelier d’architecture david huet
places
faces
jars
plan libre 196
Rondabouts
The final sequence of Jacques Tati's Playtime begins with a roundabout transformed into a colorful and musical carousel. The roundabout is modest but equipped with all the attributes of a city-edge rotary, slightly curved, adorned with a geometric flowerbed, and embellished with a poorly chosen sculpture. After Monsieur Hulot's unfortunate wanderings in a neutralized Paris, the saturated and dysfunctional roundabout seems to reactivate a joyful and uncontrollable urbanity. The film concludes with music, bringing a new rhythm and promises of adventures.
It is this hope that "the emergence of the future" carries, as glimpsed by Luc Gwiazdzinski through the occupations of roundabouts by the Yellow Vests and the unexpected transformations of suburban roundabouts into a foundation for a new "community of affection." At the intersection and possibility of encounter, the rotary intersection replaces a continuous avoidance. There are approximately 60,000 roundabouts in France. This archipelago resurfaces where accident-prone intersections can be avoided, where the city distributes and dissipates into a low-density suburbanity.
The architecture of roundabouts is designed to evade any form of event; it is continuous, logistical, and daily, with only the plants that adorn them showing the passing of seasons. Even the term "roundabout," composed in tautology, firmly repeats its circular form. Tracing the history of his research on roundabouts01, expanded to the architecture of roads02, Éric Alonzo reminds us that "the permanence of the shape of territorial objects constitutes reservoirs of uses that can be activated at any time."
Thus, roundabouts can become occupied platforms. Undoubtedly, in each person's journey, there is one roundabout that stands out from the others: the one that marks the entrance to an area, a corner of the city that is dear to us. For me, among others, I recognize a constellation of three that articulate the gradual passage from the city to the heart of a cluster of houses. They have been a landmark to guide visitors, "at the second roundabout, turn left," and symbolically marked, like gates, the gradual entrance into domesticity. As a child, without a license or a car, it was common to say to friends, "meet at the roundabout," to designate the place where the winding streets of the housing developments converge. It was our gathering point and already a promise of adventures.
Sébastien Martinez-Barat
This is a personal translation, it may vary slightly from the original text.
01 — Éric Alonzo, Du rond-point au giratoire, Marseille, Parenthèses, 2005.
02 — Éric Alonzo, L’Architecture de la voie. Histoire et théories, Marseille/Champs-sur-Marne, Parenthèses/École d’architecture de la ville & des territoires, 2018.