Page 16 - ELEMENTS EUROPA (EN)

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central element of visibility – the lantern – introduces an architectural
problem whose solution depends both on a lighting device and on the
perspective effects set on the building’s life phases and paces.

The lantern cage is a protection apparatus for its centre and the double
diurnal and nocturnal regime of its radiating power. The outer patchwork
presents an image of an almost immoderate patch, it expresses the strength
of old Europe’s typological, constructive and hand-crafted legacies, whereas
its strict structural arrangement takes on the task of recycling, invests the
poetic dimension of reuse, opens the perspective of an architecture not
claiming any affiliation with the sole historic heritage or modern technical
prowess, but it hauls up its ecological responsibility like a flag.

The gap between the (external) wood facade and the (internal) glass
flanks of the lantern involves an obligation to stir the link between both
architectures. Because the respective position of both objects and their
double geometry call for many interpretations, their mutual interaction
subjecting them to alternations of light/shadow, action/rest, intensity or
quietness, obviousness or enigma, involves an almost theatrical planning.

The lantern houses the heart of the European political apparatus as it is
destined to host heads of state and government summits as well as councils
of ministers. It bears the most direct symbol of the executive power the
Lisbon Treaty gave the European Union. Yet, during the day, that symbol is
partly hidden behind its wooden screen. The meaning of its architecture
does not depend on its end usage only but also on its own architectonic
structure: the latter is a double or triple one; it is composite or even
eclectic; its aspect when lit up is divided into alternating phases, diurnal and
nocturnal; it is ambiguous. Like Europe aiming at federating but whose unity
still is only virtual in many aspects. Europe constitutively depends on the
States it gathers together; without them, it has no existence. Nevertheless,
it has become the nerve centre and target of conflicts of interests and
public disputes: it is an unpopular political object as well as a fantasised and
desired one. It is little known yet essential. How could the new emblem of
the European executive power avoid the risk of such ambivalence? Through
the answer its architecture provides public requests with, through unfaltering
support to the visible part the institution plays in Brussels and through the
games and animations of its multiple elevation plans.

Two or three architectural types internally dividing the building (the
Residence Palace still pushes one of its facade faces on Rue de la Loi)
involuntarily reflect a sought yet tormented unity. The new Council of
Europe head office is to be inaugurated as Britain is breaking away. Europe
built itself up through a series of increasingly complex stages; today, it
seems to be seeking even greater complexity, even though pulled in the
opposite direction towards degrowth and amputation. Will this weaken or
strengthen its architectural symbol? Nobody can tell but current events