BERNARD TSCHUMI

Bernard Tschumi is a very diverse architect in terms of the projects that he has done throughout his
career. From Parc de la Villette to Elliptic city to The Bridge to The New Acropolis Museum to The
Zoological Park in Paris. Tschumi’s ideology is quite inspiring, he talks about how every project that an
architect does, has to have a concept, context and content. One of the most prevalent concept in his
projects is the conceptualization of materials that he uses. This is what I like most about him. The
conceptualization of materials and context, which can be very well seen in The New Acropolis Museum
in Athens. The museum stands less than a 1000ft from The Parthenon. Nobody can compete with The
Parthenon, but it is absolutely mesmerizing how Tschumi has created an identity for the museum without
having to compete with the monument at all. The site has so much context of its own, so much history,it
is filled with ruins and archeological remnants. This is where he used these particular constraints to derive
a concept. The museum is tripartite. It has a glass outer envelope, you can view the Parthenon from here.
The interiors are made of concrete while the sculptures inside it are made of marble. The concrete absorbs
the light, while the marble reflects it. There is a dialog going on between the existing structure and this
new building. Apart from this, Bernard has a lot of concepts of defamiliarization, superimposition, and
juxtaposition. He believes that without events there is no architecture. In his book ‘Red is Not a Color’, he
talks about formless architecture. According to him “Architecture is not so much a knowledge of form,
but a form of knowledge.”