Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre - Concept Planning

Concept Planning

The pavilions or the “Cases” built with landscaping around it

The building plans, spread over an area of 8,550 square metres (92,000 sq ft) of the museum, were conceived to incorporate the link between the landscape and the built structures in the Kanak traditions. The people had been removed from their natural landscape and habitat of mountains and valleys and any plan proposed for the art centre had to reflect this aspect. Thus, the planning aimed at a unique building which would be, as the architect Pinao clearly stated in his own words as "to create a symbol" ..."a cultural centre devoted to Kanak civilization, the place that would represent them to foreigners that would pass on their memory to their grand children". The model as finally built evolved after much debate in organized 'Building Workshops' in which Piano’s associate Paul Vincent and Alban Bensa, an anthropologist of repute on Kanak culture were also involved. The precursor for this cultural centre was the first cultural festival held in 1975 in New Caledonia, which was a focused celebration of Kanak culture. The Melanasia 2000 Festival was also held at the same venue where the centre has been established now. The centre is also termed as "A politicized symbolic project", which evolved over long period of research and intense debate.

Another aspect of the Kanak's building tradition was that it did not fit in with the concept of a permanent building. They lived in temporary type of buildings made with locally available material which needed to be replaced from time to time in the subtropical climate. This involved a wood frame building built on earthen plinths and with roof covered by thatch. The form of the building also varied from island to island, generally round in plan and conical in the vertical elevation. They made the houses in groups with the headman’s house at the end of an open public alley formed by other buildings clustered along on both sides. Trees lined these alleys with a shady central gathering. This theme was adopted in the Cultural Centre planned by Pinao and his associates.

An important concept that evolved after deliberations in the 'Building Workshops', after Pinao won the competition for building the art centre, also involved "landscaping ideas" to be created around each building. To this end, an "interpretative landscape path" was conceived and implemented around each building with series of vegetative cover avenues along the path that surrounded the building, but separated it from the lagoon. This landscape setting appealed to the Kanak people when the centre was inaugurated. Even the approach to the buildings from the paths catered to the local practices of walking for three quarters of the path to get to the entrance to the Cases. One critic of the building observed: "It was very intelligent to use the landscape to introduce the building. This is the way the Kanak people can understand".