2023
The project consists of a collective exploration of the issues, challenges, ideas, and forms related to reuse in architecture. Located at the heart of the Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine, the Platform for Architectural Creation is an experimental format whose critical focus is defined by “what raises questions, what sparks debate.” It is a place for installations and discussions, complementing the exhibitions of the Cité. Its positioning is rooted in a logic of openness: transgenerational, trans-European, and transdisciplinary.
The architectural firm Barrault Pressacco, resident at the Platform for Architectural Creation at the Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine for the 2023–2024 season, proposes to invite emerging architects to transform a found object, giving it a new form and a new life. Each participant is invited to “find” an object and imagine its metamorphosis into architecture. The final work of each team consists of two images, a diptych representing the before and after of the transformation of the found object.
Forty-four young architecture practices are invited to imagine the transformation of a series of found objects into architectural forms as part of the Duo and Debate program of the Platform for Architectural Creation at the Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine. The participants create a collection of imagined architectures, examining questions of economy of means, materials, energy, and gestures. The exhibition presents a diversity of practices that explore new narratives through reuse, transforming perceptions and expressing a civic-minded attitude.
All contributions to the project will be featured in a book published and distributed in France and internationally, and exhibited in May at the Platform for Architectural Creation at the Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine in Paris. The exhibition opening and book launch will take place on May 11, 2023. Bauclub chose to present a Brussels chimney, an element often questioned during the transformation of Brussels housing.
Laboratoire, in collaboration with artist Juliette Blatter, decided to work on the interlocking concrete block. The starting point of their reflection is the use of a highly transformed material—polluting in its manufacturing process and mass-produced—to address the challenges of the contemporary city. It is both a nod to modernism and an optimistic look toward the future. Rather than taking a radical turn, the project seeks to intelligently question what already exists and to confront history head-on in order to appropriate it. Beyond a critique of society, this block, understood in its role as a boundary, engages with issues of density, sustainability, and soil permeability in the making of the city—a constantly renewed dance.
Juliette Blatter 