Jean-Marc Ayrault, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development, Emmanuelle Cosse, Minister of Housing and Sustainable Housing and Audrey Azoulay, Minister of Culture and Communication, welcome the inauguration on Friday, May 27, 2016, of the French Pavilion of the 15e International exhibition of architecture - Biennale di Venezia.
The project New Wealth, presented in the French Pavilion by curators Obras-Frédéric Bonnet and Collectif AJAP14, is part of the theme Reporting from the Front, proposed by the General Commissioner of the Biennale, the Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena.
It makes a unique contribution to this debate and presents itself as a manifesto in favour of everyday life and a quality of life. It shows how everywhere in France new organizations are emerging and redefining the potential of territories. It also reflects the vitality of French architecture, its know-how and its ability to respond to emerging issues.
The Commissioners wished to report here on the countless places ordinary that make up the national territory. Familiar places, at first sight banal, but the use of which proceeds from the requalification of the territories, whether they are villages, agricultural and natural spaces, suburbs, peri-urban communes straddling between city and countryside, forgotten interstices of large cities and metropolises, etc.
The public utility of these projects, sometimes modest, is affirmed. It is the result of collective work, of a shared intelligence that brings together architects, elected officials and citizens.
The inauguration of the French Pavilion was attended by Bruno Foucher, Executive President of the French Institute, and Vincent Berjot, Director General of Heritage, Ministry of Culture and Communication.
The team
OBRAS Architectes Urbanistes
Fréderic Bonnet
AJAP14 Collective :
Boidot & Robin Architects
Julien Boidot, Emilien Robin
Boris Bouchet Architects
Boris Bouchet
Claas Architects
Boris Nauleau
Workshop png
Antoine Petit, Nicolas Debicki, Grichka Martinetti
NeM Architects
Lucie Niney, Thibault Marca
Studio 1984
Jean Rehault, Jordi Primas, Marina Ramirez, Romain Gie
R Architecture
Alice Wijnen, Guillaume Relier
Studiolada
Benoît Sindt, Christophe Aubertin, Xavier Géant, Agnès Hausermann, Eléonore Nicolas, Nastasia Vellandi
With the support of MYOP, France(s) Territoire Liquide, Fourre-Tout Editions, National Higher Schools of Architecture, Architects advising the State, Houses of Architecture, CAUE.
For New Wealth, the team first chose ten transformed locations, which were explored by the photographers of the France(s) Territoire Liquide collective. Three images relate each territorial reality. The first shows this gross ordinary place, the second reveals in this site a recent transformation and to finish the third is even closer, the architecture transfigures, improves the situation, brings here something new!
The main hall of the pavilion territories is the place of discovery of these ordinary landscapes modified by this work of architecture.
In the right room narratives, six surveys in six locations testify to the collective work between elected officials, architects, citizens and companies, meetings to establish the project, and the way in which their implementation was played out. The models, maps and drawings are made by the curators of the exhibition, as in the room know-how.
In the latter are exposed six other projects, with sober architectures that also stimulate the local economy.
In the third room facing the entrance, the potting soil, the architects report on the national call made to the national higher schools of architecture, as well as to the bodies of advice and pedagogy of architecture that work on the national territory. Texts and images are projected here to testify to this bubbling and the architects' commitment to the challenges of society.
This reflection is also reflected in a catalogue that draws up an inventory of the transformation of everyday life through architecture. It is published by the publishing house Fourre-Tout, in Liège (Belgium).
The French Pavilion of the 15e International Exhibition of Architecture - The Biennale di Venezia was supported by the Caisse des Dépôts Group, the National Institute of Geographic and Forest Information (IGN), SACBA and SOMC, the Mulhusian Society of Workers' Cities.
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