technical school ville nouvelle melun senart
critic: Claude Calmettes, Bob Timme, John Perry, Ed Eubanks

"...In the last couple of years, people lost a lot of civic courage...they want to remodel cities into villages."
-Coop Himmelblau
The region immediately south of Paris is host to a gangly legion of disparate suburbs. It is hoped that the future settlements in the area will learn from and rise above the problems associated with the suburban condition. A proposed new development in Melun-Senart acknowledges these problems, but is impotent in resolving them. However, there is an intriguing model of the thirteenth century bastide used in their discourse that may provide a workable solution. The bastide is a fortified French frontier town base on the plan of early Roman cities. The most intriguing feature of the bastide was the central market space. The town revolved around the market space, and yet at the same time, the market was subordinate to the whole town. The unique spatial quality is what makes the bastide a compelling example of town planning. So the most engaging solution would be to phenomenologically translate this spirit to a contemporary paradigm: a subjective technocentrism. It is here that one can find the source of universalization that aspires to transpose the realm of regional culture and the tactile by way of the scenographic and visual stimulus that can best be described as an 'electronic narcotic'.
The technical school is an integral part to this new town adding diversity to the mix of uses needed to create a functional city.