The FRAC of Dunkirk by Lacaton & Vassal: About Incommensurability, Duplication and Openness

Rather than pursuing an inclusion in the pre- existent urban-port plot, the FRAC of Dunkirk (2013-2015) aimed to establish a relationship with the industrial and maritime context based on the achievement of the "right" measure of architecture. The port always poses an inescapable problem of scale: it causes a disorientation that, though, opens up the opportunity to experience a difference forcing the limits of classifications. Regeneration projects like this one has to confront with oceanic proportions: beyond the scale of quays, dams and ships, in fact, the FRAC of Dunkirk dialogues with the size of the sea and the horizon, losing the urban dimension to become a landscape.