Walkable scenographic art
Walkable scenographic art
Keywords: Scenography, Museums, Exhibitions, Colour
As winners of a competition sponsored by the city of Caen, France, the agency Zen+dCo was selected to design the scenography for two new exhibition areas,“Le monde a’ l’heure de la guerre froide” (The World in the Cold War Period) and “Des mondes pour la paix” (Worlds for Peace), at the Caen Memorial. Founded by Zette Cazalas, this agency has more than 15 years of experience with scenography and museography.
The building client wanted the architecture to be oriented on the scenographic design. “The 3,000 m2 building that contains the museographic exhibition areas for the Cold War and Peace themes needed to be designed and built around the scenography”, said Jesus Pacheco, project manager and architect at Zen+dCo.
In “The World in the Cold War Period”, visitors are confronted with a multitude of impressive images spread over 800 m2 of exhibition space: images of atomic weapons tests projected on a 360° screen using new technology; suspended segments of the Berlin Wall that appear to float in space; normal, everyday objects from the Cold War period that appear to“pour” out of a Trabant (representing the East Bloc) and a Lincoln(representing the West) hanging inverted 7 m above the floor; a Russian MiG 21 on which visitors walk and the warhead of a missile from the former strategic missile site in Albion, France, which symbolise the weapons of destruction.
The polyurethane floor, itself a work of art composed of glowing splotches of colour, serves as a sort of echo to the disastrous Berlin Wall, decorated with thousands of fragments of colour, as if it wanted to attest to the drabness and gloom of this period. With the floor, “we wanted to create a gradual transition from shadow to light, thus following the museographic crescendo of the confrontation between the two ideological blocs up to the fall of the Berlin Wall, which in our scenography is flying away”, explains Zette Cazalas. The entry to the exhibition space has dark splotches with only a few scattered bits of red; as the splotches gradually increase in size, yellow tones and then increasingly lively colours become visible. The floor reflects this progression:gray on gray, interspersed with increasingly larger and more vibrant colours leading up to the grand female, a veritable explosion of joy (the fall of the Wall).
Zen+dCo chose a seamless curtain coating polyurethane floor coating from Boulenger, Paris, France. It is based on Desmodur/ Desmophen polyurethane raw materials from Bayer AG, Leverkusen, Germany. This floor coating can be formulated in a broad spectrum of colours. At 4 mm thick, it is said to be suitable for all interior spaces needing a unique, colourful look (Plate1-3).
Plate 1 Zen+dCo chose a seamless curtain coating polyurethane floor coating based on Bayer’s Desmodur®/Desmophen® polyurethane raw materials to take up the scenography of the exhibition areas dedicated to the Cold War and the display of objects symbolizing this period. The 4 mm thick coating is suitable for all interior spaces needing a unique, colorful look
Plate 2 The polyurethane floor coating can be easily applied on the floor by making use e.g. of a spatula, as it is shown here
Plate 3The reason for choosing a floor based on Bayer’s Desmodur®/Desmophen® polyurethane raw material and synthetic rubber granulate for those storeys open to the public (3,000 m2 of floor space) was that this floor is always a continuous surface, regardless of future changes to the configuration of the space. Furthermore, the coating, which at 10 mm thick is 2 mm thicker than usual, has sound-damping properties which ensure the quiet a library requires
Room for improvisation on site was allowed with respect to the colours, the only restriction being that the splotches had to be a predefined size as the colours were formulated in advance. Customers have been walking on this work of art since the museum opened in April, 2002. The polyurethane coating was applied by Zette Cazalas and Jesus Pacheco.
Zen+dCo had previously laid a polyurethane curtain coating floor in Chartres,France. The wish to combine colour effects with elastic materials was the decisive factor for the choice of this material for the Caen Memorial. The random combinations of colours impart an intentionally plastic effect to the completely flat, seamless surface.
This modern material is also believed to provide improved acoustic attenuation compared to conventional floor coatings and maintains its elasticity so that it is comfortable to walk on.
Polyurethanes for the Montpellier library
To integrate the new municipal library into the densely developed Antigone neighbourhood of Montpellier, France, architects Paul Chemetov and Borja Huidobro, participating in a competition sponsored by the city of Montpellier,wanted to create a very bright space – both to take advantage of the natural light falling on the building and to ensure sufficient reading light in the various sections of the library.
“The architects also had to consider the climatic conditions”,explained Laurent Boudrillet, project manager at the Paul Chemetov Agency. It was decided to design the building according to its use. The south side of the eight-storey, concrete-and-stone building, which gets the most sun, is dedicated to storage of the library’s collection. A transparent facade on the north side brightens the reading rooms. These two areas are joined to one another by a lightweight roof and are arranged beneath a central passage: a gigantic glass structure with a 25 m high ceiling that connects the section in which the books,newspapers, etc. are stored with the section is open to the public. From this vantage point, visitors can see all of the floors and easily get their bearings.
Roughly 3,500 m2 of the 16,000 m2 total floor space are covered with a floor based on Desmodur/ Desmophen polyurethane raw material and a synthetic rubber granulate. The floors were cast at room temperature on the first and second storeys of the public section of the building.
The reason for selecting such a floor for those areas with public traffic is that the seamless polyurethane coating, which is poured in a single operation, is in every respect a “free plane”. Regardless of future configuration changes, the floor will always be a continuous surface. “Furthermore, the rubber granulate floor, which was laid to a thickness of 10 mm has sound damping properties which ensure the silence a library requires. And because we have already laid this floor in other buildings, we know that it is robust and is resistant to ageing. Finally, the price-to-quality ratio appealed to us”, said Laurent Boudrillet.
The rubber granulate floor is laid on site by hand, smoothed with a filling knife and allowed to cure. It is then sanded, coated and resanded before it is sealed.
Details available from Bayer AG., Tel: +49 214 30 54529;Fax: +49 214 30 5 89 23; Web site: www.bayer.com
