La filature

La filature

De Sola Montiel, Pablo

Frausto, Salomon (mentor)
Avissar, I (mentor)
Weaver, T (mentor)

Delft University of Technology

The Berlage Post-MSc in Architecture and Urban Design

2018-02-02

La filature is a call for the disruption of the post-industrial heritage.
Imitating the filming technique of montaging and cutting to introduce the
foreign type of the Movie Palace into the obsolete textile factory
Desurmont. The project uses the pre-existent conditions of the ruin as sets,
backgrounds for the production of films and as ornaments for the Movie
Palace, as a counter reaction to current understanding of industrial heritage
and as a opposition to current development of the cinema type.
Between 1893 and 1929, the society Jules De Sourmont and Sons built
their main site factory of spinning wool in Tourcoing, in the North of
France. The use of reinforce concrete allowed the construction of large contemporary films. It challenges preconceives ways of making and
thinking architecture and cinema.
Openings in the walls and floors are made to let the camera pass and shot
continuous scenes from space to space, transforming the complex in one
single set. The cut of the cinema becomes the performer. It deconstructs
the factory main building to transform it into a movie palac. It shape is the
result of the technical specification of the film industry standard of quality
THX, the procedure of demolition to guaranty the structural stability and
the programmatic functions of the movie palace.
The fear of demolishing something and never have it back, block the
transformation of the post-industrial heritage, “It is time for a no-blame
conversation about letting some things change and even letting some
things go.” . La filature celebrates the ruins, is an alternative proposal for
the Desurmont factory, not its complete demolition, neither its complete
transformation. It proposes hard cuts of the building to show an alternative
way of dealing with heritage to accept the reality of the ruin.
spam using bearing beams, thus liberating the floor plans for big chains of
machines to process the wool. In 2003 the Desurmont factory closed, it
could not follow anymore the evolution of the industry. The concrete
structure can no longer host the innovations of the industry. The structure
that once made the company so productive and modern, was now force it
to the bankruptcy, and the abandon.
Samuel ‘Roxy’ Rothafel, an American theatrical impresario, inaugurated
The Roxy theatre in 1927. The opening hosted the silent movie “The
Loves of Sonya” starring Gloria Swanson. Its rather modest entrance
disguised one of the most cavernous lobbies ever built, and a magnificent
auditorium equipped with the latest technology. Sublimely ornamented, it
follows the type’s sequence of spaces commonly used in the movie
palaces. Sadly demolished in 1960.. The movie palaces like Roxy or
Gaumont in Paris could not compete with the modern suburban cinema
multiplexes. Those macro complexes of mass consumption are simple
black containers that provoke the boredom of the spectator.
Sergei Eisenstein argued that “Montage has been established by the Soviet
film as the nerve of cinema”. But what happens if instead of edit the film
we edit architecture? The project uses demolition tools to transform the
spaces and curated the ruin as a counter reaction to the over edited

Cinema
Movie Palace
Ruin
Deconstruction

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Student theses

master thesis

© 2018 Pablo De Sola Montiel