Circus school

The Centre national des arts du cirque (Cnac), based in Châlons-en-Champagne since 1985, is concentrated on the historic 19th century circus site.

In July 2006, the French government purchased a parcel (land and existing buildings) that the La Marnaise Agricultural Cooperative was forced to sell due to security concerns – the grain silos were located too close to a very busy road. Following a project management competition launched in late 2010 by the OPPIC, acting on behalf of the Ministry for Culture and Communications, the project was awarded to Marseille-based firm § Caractère Spécial, in partnership with NP2F architectes.

The project consists of extending the CNAC onto the fallow farmland of the La Marnaise Agricultural Cooperative site (roughly 20,000 sqm). The CNAC is currently located in the historic Châlons-en-Champagne circus, just a few hundred metres from the silos. With the project now completed, the two sites complement one another.

The architects chose not to demolish anything, and instead to renovate the existing buildings and leave the open areas for the fairground activities traditionally associated with the circus. So they proceeded creating a new building, the “school building”, between the Rousseau silo and the northern hangar and renovating the existing silos; creating a 13-unit student housing building at the corner of the Rue de l’Industrie and the Avenue du Maréchal Leclerc; reusing some of the existing roads and exterior fittings.

In order to affirm their presence and their role within the town, the school building and housing are fitted into previously empty spaces. The location and design of these volumes forms an extension of the existing buildings, recreating a facade along the site, aligned with the northern hangar. A circus school should foster interactions on a general level, and more specifically between the different site users: technicians, administrative staff and students. So the compact school building is organised around three areas: administration, teachers; music, theatre, dance classrooms; other spaces (students areas, sauna, dressing rooms).

In order to successfully integrate the different buildings and visually unify all of the CNAC buildings with the northern hangar and the Rousseau silo, the facades of the school building and housing are made of natural coloured Eternit-type fibre cement, with caisson rafters supporting undulating plaques of fibre cement. Rather than defining itself in opposition to the existing buildings, the project extends them, echoing their materials and forms. Eternit was chosen to restore the reputation of a cheap material.

The frame, with its archaic beauty, was designed in a studio and prefabricated on site: the corners, support and assembly pieces and connectors are all virtually identical so the moulds could be reused. The concrete assemblies were designed as monolithic blocks, with no other materials visible, thanks to saddles hidden inside the concrete elements. The concrete frame supports the structure, leaving its full volume open. No maintenance will be required.

Centre national des arts du cirque, Châlons-en-Champagne, France
Programme: extension and construction of 13 student housing
Architect: Caractère Spécial § Matthieu Poitevin Architecture and NP2F architectes (associated architect)
Project managers: Marc Kauffmann and Nicolas Guérin
Structural engineering: DVVD Fluids/EQ
Engineering: Elithis
Construction economics: VPEAS
Lighting design: Lumières studio
Scenography: Ducks sceno
Acoustics: Orfea
Landscape: Base
Surface area: 3,500 sqm SHON (5,500 sqm sdp)
Cost: 5,1 M€ HT
Completion: 2015