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The Dancing Tower – Rivière-au-Renard
By : BGLA architecture et design urbain
GRANDS PRIX DU DESIGN 18th edition
Discipline : Architecture
Categories : Special Award / Architecture + Landscape : Gold certification
Categories : Other categories in architecture / Unclassified Category in Architecture : Grand Winner
A Dancing Tower in the landscape of Rivière-au-Renard!
The construction of the Rivière-au-Renard Observation Tower, in Gaspésie, is part of a seaside landscaped promenade project that showcases the tourism character of the Capital of Marine Fishing in Quebec.
Composed of a series of wooden-clad rings successively fitted around a main galvanized steel structure, the new tourist welcoming tower now stands in the Gaspesian landscape of Rivière-au-Renard. The robustness of the metal structure contrasts with the swaying of the rings, reminiscent of the strong winds typical of this area of the Gaspé Peninsula. This inspired the project's name Dancing Tower, as if the structure reacts and deforms in response to the natural elements threatening it, like the dress of a dancer lifting in her sway.
Climbing the tower is facilitated by a central wooden stairway, ascending spirally in stages. The panorama unfolds intermittently during the ascent through the truncated rings clad in cedar shingle, echoing the siding of the traditional buildings nearby. Thus adorned, the tower moves as a fisherman's boat sways on the sea, giving the impression of waltzing in the landscape and the salty breezes. The observation platform peaks at a height of 11m above ground level.
Requiring little maintenance, the cedar shingle will age and the tower will take on a silvery hue to blend into the landscape. As night falls, with the aid of concealed lighting, the interior of the rings illuminates, and the tower becomes the guardian of the port in the night.
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Architect : BGLA architecture et design urbain
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