Centre Chorégraphique National

This building, designed by French architect Rudy Ricciotti, is an atypical project, fascinating for the ambiguous play it generates between envelope and structure. It is built on a very limited plot (35x18 metres), which it fully occupies. The centre is spread over four levels: a basement containing an auditorium, the foyer and administration on the ground floor and rehearsal studios on the first and second floors. Since the structure could not rest on any internal support, it had to be banished to the periphery. It consists of a web of block-stained black concrete posts, positioned diagonally and criss-crossing at the horizontal levels, that encloses the whole of the parallelepiped volume. Behind the concrete mantle is a second façade of large glass panels spanning the full height of each storey and providing the dancers inside with a panoramic view of the city. Like a ghostly, charred silhouette, the volume emerges from a composite landscape.