The Center Cultural Tjibaou, honored to Jean Marie Tjibaou who killed in 1989 while leading the fight for his country’s freedom from the French government, is devoted to the cultural origins and search for identity of the native Kanak people of New Caledonia and the South Pacific. In the native tongue of Jean Marie Tjibaou, pije language, it is also known as Ngan Jila, meaning cultural center. The indigenous Kanak people live on the islands of the New Caledonian archipelago. In 1991 Renzo Piano won an international competition to design a centre of Kanak culture.

Piano developed his original proposal with the help of local people, including Tjibaou’s widow. The building has subsequently appeared in many architectural publications identifying this site as a significant contribution to world architecture. But more importantly indigenous people are also hailing the building as the first piece of architecture representing Pacific culture. This is ironic as the architect is Italian, the client is French and the location is the last of the Pacific colonies.

He wanted his design to reflect the local culture, buildings and natural environment, but without intended to replicate directly Kanak huts. So Renzo Piano uses the imagery of villages and huts, both of which continue a Pacific stereotype that is complicated, which the hut is seen as the origin of architecture and yet despised as mere building. However he altered and modified the traditional building that he used as a model and says, “At a certain point I decided to tone down the resemblance between ‘my’ huts and those of local tradition.”

The concept is based on the idea of village clusters and tall, tapering, ribbed structures, but on a monumental scale, the tallest is the height of a 9-storey building. Also he opened up to the sky the closed roof of the hut but also removed the centrepost. This was a surprising move in Freudian terms and even more so because in many Pacific societies the centrepost is identified with the leader. In New Caledonia, Tjibaou referred to the centrepost as ‘the elder brother.’

The Tjibaou Cultural Center itself is similar to that of the villages in which the Kanak tribes live: a series of huts which distinguish the different functions and hierarchies of the tribes and a central alley along which the huts are dispersed. More specifically, the building is composed of three ‘villages’ made up of ten ‘Great Houses’ of varying sizes and functions. The ‘Great Houses’ are linked by a long, gently curving enclosed pathway, which winds through the dense natural vegetation. A Kanak traditional ceremonial grounds of the Kanak with traditional huts, an outdoor auditorium and residences for visiting artists, lecturers, scholars and students. These spaces, as well as the main building, integrate themselves and take advantage of the natural beauty of the site.

The identity of the Kanak is not only presented through the form of the building but also through its exploration of the relationship between Kanak culture to nature and the landscape. Located on a peninsula between the storm-tossed Pacific Ocean and a calm lagoon the design of Renzo Piano takes advantage of the prevailing winds from the ocean side through its system of natural ventilation. The sound and feel of the wind is something that can only be experienced by being there and seems to transcend any kind of technological terms or mechanisms. It is a feeling of being inside, yet outside at the same time, of being protected yet still close to nature.

In place of the Kanak’s slender ribs of palm sapling, Renzo Piano uses ribs of horizontal wood slats composed of iroko wood (a type of wood that is impervious to rot and can withstand cyclone-force winds from west Africa) of the outer facade on the ocean side filter the wind into a second layer of skin, an inner facade of glass louvers which open or close according to wind speed, allowing wind to flow through the building for passive ventilation. The double layer of skin also filters the warm air upward functioning similar to a chimney. It will blend to the same silvery grey as the indigenous palm, linked by horizontal tubes and diagonal rod ties of stainless steel.

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