Henry Chinaski
September 9th, 2004, 12:13 AM
La Géode is located in the north-east of Paris in a vast 55-hectare green area called the Parc de la Villette.
La Géode opened its doors on 6 May 1985.one year before the Science and Industry Park, the opening of which on 13 March 1986 coincided with the passing through of Halley's comet.
La Géode houses France's leading movie theatre, number one by dint of the number of people visiting it, entirely devoted to the projection of large scale films on its giant 1 000 m2 hemispheric screen.
If vaults and domes have always existed in sacred architecture then the sphere, by its sheer complexity, has for a long time remained foreign to the rules of architecture. In the renaissance period people discovered that the earth is a sphere. In the 18th century, the sphere remained the dream of a perfect space for a new man and world.
Etienne-Louis Boullée (1728-1799) designed Newton's spherical cenotaph. But the sphere can not be made out of stone and a whole host of young architects pursued this impossible dream during the 19th and 20th centuries.
After the second world war the project was reborn thanks to progress made in metal construction work.
In 1983 Adrien Fainsilber, a French architect, dreamt up and designed La Géode. Gérard Chamaillou, engineer and sculptor, turned it into a reality.
Seating capacity of 400.
It's an arborescent structure of reinforced concrete supported on three points: one central pillar and two scroll columns.
The central pillar spreads out into criss-crossing pillars and arches on a corbelled structure 17 metres high.
It supports the tiered seating and the equipment rooms within the theatre. Weighing more than 6000 tonnes, it is thirty times heavier than the spherical roof that covers it.
Its so-called "onion skin" construction overcomes problems caused by heat pressure and expansion.
The supporting structure carries the loads and is covered by a succession of layers protecting it against fire and leaks and insulating it against heat and sound.
It's a 36 m diametre dome.
The supporting geodesic structure is made up of a triangulated spherical frame made of 2,580 steel tube bars.
The auxiliary framework supports 6433 pre-formed triangles of polished stainless steel, assembled 1/10 of a millimetre apart, each one fixed individually, in groups of four.
In this way no triangle is touching another, enabling them to expand as the temperature changes.
The triangles form the cover for La Géode, making it look like a mirror reflecting everything around it. Each triangle has been polished individually; the polishing was taken particularly seriously to ensure that the light had identical polarisation on each one.
http://www.layher.fr/chantiers/La%20_Geode.jpg
http://www.lit.osaka-cu.ac.jp/~fukushim/paris/photos/20000619/0006.jpg
http://www.ambafrance-ng.org/voicifra/pict/geode.jpg
http://klobouk.fsv.cvut.cz/~anicka/030415_Paris_A+Z/142-4267_IMG.JPG
http://lkfz-wg.iserv.bs.ni.schule.de/images/la-geode_jpg.jpg
http://himpy.idi.ntnu.no/~zoran/pics/967-Paris-Sept-03/DSCN0134.JPG
http://himpy.idi.ntnu.no/~zoran/pics/967-Paris-Sept-03/DSCN0143.JPG
http://himpy.idi.ntnu.no/~zoran/pics/967-Paris-Sept-03/DSCN0139.JPG
http://www.phan-ngoc.com/fred/paris/img/citesciences3.jpghttp://www.comune.bologna.it/iperbole/llgalv/citta/francese/GEODE.jpg
http://www.drammaturgia.it/immagini/1203_dram_testav_4.jpghttp://www.xtec.es/centres/a8037206/departaments/mates/geode.jpghttp://www.on-luebeck.de/~swessin/paris/wn43b.jpg
http://photos.linternaute.com/document/image/550/villes-geode-parc-ile-paris-233493.jpghttp://www.amicortina.com/diapogran/par1.jpg
La Géode opened its doors on 6 May 1985.one year before the Science and Industry Park, the opening of which on 13 March 1986 coincided with the passing through of Halley's comet.
La Géode houses France's leading movie theatre, number one by dint of the number of people visiting it, entirely devoted to the projection of large scale films on its giant 1 000 m2 hemispheric screen.
If vaults and domes have always existed in sacred architecture then the sphere, by its sheer complexity, has for a long time remained foreign to the rules of architecture. In the renaissance period people discovered that the earth is a sphere. In the 18th century, the sphere remained the dream of a perfect space for a new man and world.
Etienne-Louis Boullée (1728-1799) designed Newton's spherical cenotaph. But the sphere can not be made out of stone and a whole host of young architects pursued this impossible dream during the 19th and 20th centuries.
After the second world war the project was reborn thanks to progress made in metal construction work.
In 1983 Adrien Fainsilber, a French architect, dreamt up and designed La Géode. Gérard Chamaillou, engineer and sculptor, turned it into a reality.
Seating capacity of 400.
It's an arborescent structure of reinforced concrete supported on three points: one central pillar and two scroll columns.
The central pillar spreads out into criss-crossing pillars and arches on a corbelled structure 17 metres high.
It supports the tiered seating and the equipment rooms within the theatre. Weighing more than 6000 tonnes, it is thirty times heavier than the spherical roof that covers it.
Its so-called "onion skin" construction overcomes problems caused by heat pressure and expansion.
The supporting structure carries the loads and is covered by a succession of layers protecting it against fire and leaks and insulating it against heat and sound.
It's a 36 m diametre dome.
The supporting geodesic structure is made up of a triangulated spherical frame made of 2,580 steel tube bars.
The auxiliary framework supports 6433 pre-formed triangles of polished stainless steel, assembled 1/10 of a millimetre apart, each one fixed individually, in groups of four.
In this way no triangle is touching another, enabling them to expand as the temperature changes.
The triangles form the cover for La Géode, making it look like a mirror reflecting everything around it. Each triangle has been polished individually; the polishing was taken particularly seriously to ensure that the light had identical polarisation on each one.
http://www.layher.fr/chantiers/La%20_Geode.jpg
http://www.lit.osaka-cu.ac.jp/~fukushim/paris/photos/20000619/0006.jpg
http://www.ambafrance-ng.org/voicifra/pict/geode.jpg
http://klobouk.fsv.cvut.cz/~anicka/030415_Paris_A+Z/142-4267_IMG.JPG
http://lkfz-wg.iserv.bs.ni.schule.de/images/la-geode_jpg.jpg
http://himpy.idi.ntnu.no/~zoran/pics/967-Paris-Sept-03/DSCN0134.JPG
http://himpy.idi.ntnu.no/~zoran/pics/967-Paris-Sept-03/DSCN0143.JPG
http://himpy.idi.ntnu.no/~zoran/pics/967-Paris-Sept-03/DSCN0139.JPG
http://www.phan-ngoc.com/fred/paris/img/citesciences3.jpghttp://www.comune.bologna.it/iperbole/llgalv/citta/francese/GEODE.jpg
http://www.drammaturgia.it/immagini/1203_dram_testav_4.jpghttp://www.xtec.es/centres/a8037206/departaments/mates/geode.jpghttp://www.on-luebeck.de/~swessin/paris/wn43b.jpg
http://photos.linternaute.com/document/image/550/villes-geode-parc-ile-paris-233493.jpghttp://www.amicortina.com/diapogran/par1.jpg