#PUBLIC ARCHITECTURE PROJECTS
paritzki liani architects pays an homage to marc chagall with tel aviv school
paying homage to marc chagall’s masterpiece ‘over the town‘ (1918), paritzki & liani architects have created ‘the new french school’, located in the neighborhood of neve tzedek in tel aviv.
the layout follows the building logic of a school as a microcosm of the city: classrooms were designed as micro-flats and the main volumes mimic small houses of a mediterranean town, joined in their common spaces by passages, small squares and unexpected gardens. the project’s approach was to put the focus on the students’ own process of exploration and knowledge of the world.
the façades containing the references to marc chagall’s masterpiece, are composed of 30 optical panels of aluminum of different measures. these were created to represent the painting using a 3D pixel system called ombrae that transforms the colors of the image in many small shadows, making the images almost like a hologram. this creates an optical weave that changes according to the point of view of the observer or the different diffusion of artificial light during night.
like in a dream, where different plots mix and support each other, the figures of ‘over the town‘ (1918) appear on the façade in front of shluss street in tel aviv. the image changes according to the viewing angle, depending on how close or far away someone is standing in relation to the building. the façade underlines chagall’s idea of the city passed by figures, animals and objects floating in the air against the laws of time and gravity.
the main volume was built around a patio or open court that’s faced by the classrooms and a set of suspended stairs. around this petit-jardin, which is the eccentric focus of the paths of the building, two stairways grow on the sides creating a double staircase which ends at the upper floor in a new open space that serves as a meeting point for the students.
on the white wall along the west façade there are some very thin glass panels with pure colors, not blended: light blue, orange, red, yellow, blue. these fragments of colored lights are united to the floor through thin steel cables which support climbing plants.
