(Student’s Full Name)
La Géode (at the Bernard Tschumi’s Parc de la Villete,) Carlos ZGZ| Flickr, n.d.
Bernard Tschumi’s Parc de la Villete is a good example of deconstruction in architecture because it correctly illustrates how an architect, similar to a writer, can use rhetorical devices, such as “repetition, distortion, or juxtaposition” (Tschumi 146). In the above photograph, the fountain, named La Géode, does not look like a traditional fountain. The shape of the fountain is distorted and allows the water to spray downwards instead of upwards. Additionally, instead of the water curving and twisting, the pipes are curved and twisted. Furthermore, instead of looking downwards at a pool of water to see one’s reflection, there is a pavement made with black concrete tiles. Instead, the architect allows a sphere made with glass tiles where one can see his reflection juxtaposed to the position of the fountain. Tschumi allows the fountain to be placed on the same level as literary rhetoric, where the “writer can twist vocabulary and grammar” to achieve particular effect in a story (Tschumi 146).
This good example of deconstruction in architecture can be contrasted to another bad example is Frank Gehry’s Dancing House in Prague, Czech Republic which is illustrated below:
Frank Gehry’s Dancing House, JInn|ruktam.blogspot.com, n.d.
It is a bad example of deconstruction in architecture because the building looks as though it has been destroyed. It can be argued that the architect took the term deconstruction too literally in this case. There does not appear to be any architectural rhetorical device that is being employed in the creation of this building unlike the Tschumi’s fountain that is depicted above. The building is twisted but the twisted nature of it does not tell a story but it is twisted to look as though it is damaged.
Work Cited
Tschumi, Bernard. “Spaces and Events.” Architecture and Disjunction. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1994. Print.
