THE TJIBAOU - POST COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE?
Such
is the extraordinariness of some forms of originality that they are at first incomprehensible.
We blink and do not believe. When we've come to, we return for more.
The
originality of the Tjibaou Cultural Centre goes some way towards accounting for
its mirage quality. It challenges credibility shimmering there on its ridge
which divides a mangrove swamp from a tropical bay. Ten arches, shells, fronds
... grouped in two threes and a four which deflect and divide the light between
the beams and slats which compose them.
Depending
on the play of the light, from a distance these carapaces glow shades of gold
or gleam silvery or melt in greys against an overcast sky.
Up
close the beams and slats which are arranged in curves to make up the
extraordinary Tjibaou skyline are seen to be weathered wood. Renzo Piano, the
architect (Pritzer Prize 1998, also known for the Pompidou Centre in Paris,
Osaka's Kansai International Airport and Aurora Place on Sydney's Macquarie
Street), selected wood from east Africa which was naturally resistant to
termites.
The
Tjibaou is in sympathy with its natural and cultural environment. It appears
organic, like the cases - houses of the indigenous population -
which rise in a steep woven cone of pandanus and coconut fronds. The cases partake as it were of nature but
by their splendid elevation assert themselves as triumphs of human endeavour
against the strong and sometimes destructive forces of their environment.
Examples
of the styles of the cases from the north and south of the grande terre mainland and of
the Loyalty Islands which make up New Caledonia/Kanaky have been built in
revealing relation to Piano's complex.
You can catch glimpses of them tapering skywards celebrating the
importance of the village and the clan in tribal life.
These
cases are to be found in the Mwakaa, the tribal customs area of the Tjibaou Centre. Their role is not
only to demonstrate a source of Piano's inspiration, to link the traditional
with this architectural and cultural innovation but to suggest here is a focal
point for interaction. Near the cases is
a large exposed auditorium inviting expression and performance. Within the
Centre's main building itself is a four hundred seat theatre offering similar
opportunities.
Piano
has arranged the Centre's sails, roofs, shells, nets, baskets .... (they defy a
single description) in the two groups of three and one of four to reflect,
suggest, converse with the culture they represent, shelter, promote ... In the
light of this allusion, the Tjibaou structure can be seen as three villages.
The clan Headman's has four roofs, one of which is the tallest of them all. The
Tjibaou 'villages' are linked by a very long, terraced corridor.
One
end of the linking corridor is at the extreme right of the photo below.
The
form of the Tjibaou Centre suggests, associates, images, evokes ... rather than
declaims, asserts, states. Piano has so empathically and imaginatively come to
terms with his commission that the Tjibaou stands as a model against which
other recent, grander architectural expressions of 'culture', wealth and
prestige may be seen as rather desperately seeking to impose. Photographers
have done Piano a disservice by photographing up, in order to emphasise the
Centre's imposition on the landscape.
The
Kanak culture of New Caledonia (or 'Kanaky' as the country will probably come
to be known) has been seriously impaired by French colonialism. It was Piano's
task to celebrate and help revivify that culture and perhaps to offer a gesture
of expiation for the guilt the colonial enterprise now feels. So while the
Tjibaou announces itself against the skyline, proclaiming the endurance of the
local traditions, it also shelters them, offers the tender renaissance being
undertaken within its walls protection against the economic, industrial world
forces which still threaten to obliterate it.
The
Tjibaou addresses its past most specifically in the case bwenaado which houses objects of Kanak
heritage - most on loan from overseas museums.
Of
course Kanaky culture cannot be kept in a glass case, it must form itself
against and flourish with the technologies and knowledges with which it is now
linked.
The
Old South Pacific World may be symbolised by Maori sculptor Brett Graham's work
comprising of two vessels and a kind of pestle - the pestle being Micronesia,
the white vessel Polynesia and the brown Melanesia. The pestle is supposed to
fit into the white vessel and both into the brown - or so declared my Kanaky
guide (Kanaky culture is largely Melanesian). This is the world from which
Kanak culture springs. These are the South Pacific peoples. The three objects
are formed of a pecked plastrous material suggesting coral, lime stone, red
volcanic soil - the substances of the South Pacific lands.
The
site of the New may be said to be the Mediatheque which offers research facilities for the indigenous cultures of
the South Pacific as well as specifically for Kanak culture. It is housed under
the four roofed section of the Tjibaou, the one which alludes to the village of
the clan Headman.
The
Centre offers facilities for school children who come from all over New
Caledonia to stay and learn about the traditions of their country. Learning,
sleeping and eating facilities for them are integrated into the Centre's main
structure and amongst the landscape of which the Tjibaou seems a feature.
The
Kanak Path offers other visitors the opportunity to discover many perspectives
on the Centre while learning about the founding beliefs of traditional life -
the basic Kanak world view. Signs offer a narration about significant plants,
their creation and the adventures of the beings associated with them. The
plants themselves are encountered as you progress.
The
paradox of the Tjibaou is its organic, living quality and its manufactured
fact. Like gills, the louvred windows
fluctuate in response to the sea breeze which flow through the building and out
over the mangrove swamp. The service tunnel is hidden. You might be outraged
from a moment if you blunder across it - what, you feel, is this concrete truck
entrance doing penetrating this beautiful soaring sacred grove?
Think
of the once outrageously flagrant engineering quality of the Pompidou, of the
technical demands of a contemporary international airport and the subtly and
extensively allusive nature of the Tjibaou and you begin to get an insight into
the grasp and intuition of Piano's achievement, his accomplishment and
imagination. Technical expertise serves a poetic evocativeness which speaks
empathically to the people it serves and represents.
Piano's
tough practicality is a kind of object lesson - this is your reality, he seems
to be saying, now what are you going to do with it?
Let
us not forget that the Tjibaou Centre also commemorates Jean-Pierre Tjibaou,
Kanaky leader, who was assassinated by a political opponent in the market where
he was speaking.
* * *
A version of this article appeared in Object magazine September 2000
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