PARC DES NATIONS. WHERE GLOBAL SOLUTIONS ARE SHAPED WITH YOU
Daniel Zieliński
Despite its multiple importance for Geneva, large parts of the international quarter in Geneva remain a blind spot in terms of urban space. Inspired by the desire of Michael Møller, Secretary-General of the United Nations in Geneva (UNOG), this project’s intention is to make the mission and daily work of the UN visible and comprehensible.
As a symbolic focal point, the compound of the United Nations is to be opened up to the urban public and reinterpreted by them through a specific concept of use. The project is based on the belief that only by intervening within the largest and most isolated piece of the puzzle can a fundamental reinterpretation of the International Quarter succeed.
This offers the opportunity to turn the previously hidden landscape into an urban park that will be integrated into the larger chain of open spaces from the botanical gardens to the lakeside promenade. A new network of paths takes up the existing entrances to the estate, opening them up and providing further access to the surroundings. The central qualities of the Parc des Nations, being its generous old tree stock and unique view on the alpine panorama, will be staged alongside architectural interventions in the sense of an arboretum.
Through architectural and landscape interventions based on previously developed security principles, the UNOG is given a more open and human face. The contrasts between old and new are consciously articulated in the architectural language.
Within the Palais, a cultural forum as well as dance halls will be housed. The single units of the public area are, so to speak, interwoven into the conference building and are linked via new entrances and a gangway. The paths of the visitors and delegates deliberately come very close to each other and in some cases end up in the same rooms, but there are always separate circulations and thus a degree of security for the political operation is ensured.
