Les Halles, Paris
With his plan for the reconstruction of the market halls of Paris Rem Koolhaas brings warmth back to urban architecture.
The different floors of Les Halles were already brought into connection with colours at the time of construction to make orientation easier for visitors: green for the ground floor, orange for the first lower floor, red for the second lower floor, yellow for third lower floor and violet for the fourth lower floor. Koolhaas uses these lower floors defined by colours to bring them to life: each floor that normally would run parallel to the others makes a quantum leap to the surface. For example, at a certain point the apparently level fourth lower floor (colour: violet) breaks through the straight course of the three floors above it and rises above ground level with a glass rock crystal before it again continues the line and again "breaks through" three floors in their intrinsic straightness until it finds its way back to its original line as the fourth lower floor. The rock crystal "shot" out of the earth proudly represents the colour of the floor: violet. The same process applies to the other three lower floors, some of them even break out of their straightness twice. Thereby a layer of rock crystals is created in the colours of the five floors over the square of Les Halles. Koolhaas was able to prevail against other star architects in the Les Halles competition but the date for construction to begin is not yet fixed.
