Ladies and gentlemen,
Dear friends,
Let me tell you how pleased I am to welcome you this evening, to the Ministry of Culture, for the presentation of the «Archinovo» prize which crowns for the third time individual houses and the architects who designed them.
Thank you to the owners for agreeing to have their home placed at the center of this contest. Thank you to the many architects who played the game of this event that celebrates their talent. Thank you to the members of the jury for having distinguished these winners among these 32 selected houses. Finally, thank you to Delphine Aboulker and the Agency «Architecture de collection» for having been at the origin.
I am happy with these awards, because they basically distinguish the first gesture that everyone attributes to the architect: that of the individual house. This is a dream that many French people share. Who has not dreamed of having his own home, designed for himself, a place adapted to his tastes, his own life, his habits, his passions, his desires, his history?
This dream takes root in an ancient tradition and has gone through the centuries.
This dream, it sometimes happens that we judge that it is no longer adapted to the challenges of the new times: is a single house necessary to face the challenge of preserving - necessary - agricultural land? Is the detached house necessary in the face of the challenge of density, which is often essential to offer to each of us public services of proximity and accessible public transport? Is the individual house necessary in the face of the challenge of landscape preservation, sometimes put to the test, Is it true that, when pavilions emerge from the ground that are often uniform, if not unfounded, and break away from the beauty of a place, they disfigure it? The peri-urban space, this in-between, neither entirely rural nor entirely urban, is constantly gaining ground. And while we see him gaining ground, we constantly question his sustainability in every sense of the word. The individual home therefore often suffers from bad press.
On the contrary the «architect’s house» is celebrated more. But it is even more celebrated that it is perceived by some of our fellow citizens as inaccessible. As a dream only within the reach of those who had the means, who knew how to choose the materials and the forms, living in a place that would be at the same time turned towards the world and territory of the intimate. And if the architects recognize that all the great ones began by inventing and creating through the individual house – think for example of the learned houses of Frank Lloyd Wright or Mies Van der Rohe, Alvar Aalto and Le Corbusier and, in particular, to this emblematic and singular example of the Cabanon de Roquebrune Cap Martin, they often prefer collective habitats, more conducive to daring.
What I appreciate in these awards, what I appreciate in these projects selected especially this year by the jury of Archinovo, is that they make all this lie. They break all the clichés and all the expected ones. They plunge us into the real and in the desirable. And this real, and this desirable, is the architecture of everyday life. This gesture consists in giving meaning to the space in which we live. This gesture that I placed at the heart of the National Strategy for Architecture that I presented a few months ago. With you, with your projects, with these awards, the importance of this strategy and its most concrete measures appear very distinctly.
Archinovo’s strength is to show that this gesture of using an architect is not so onerous and that it is worth it. In fact, how not to instantly fall in love with the DB House of the agency Avignon et Clouet, built in Saint-Sébastien-sur-Loire? Here we enter a house in the middle of a subdivision which does not suggest anything from the outside, but which plunges us suddenly into a universe that would have brushed Hockney. Water is everywhere in the house, thanks to the transparent patio. The pool, between indoor and outdoor, gives itself as a meditative space powerfully moving. It is not surprising to see this house awarded the “jury prize”.
Proving that the game is worth it: this is exactly what I want to demonstrate with the major economic study that we will launch with the Minister of Economy to better assess the contribution of architecture. To have more architecture, we will prove that using an architect brings precious security for all our fellow citizens who are looking to build their house. The follow-up of the building site by the architect, the link he makes with the other building professions, the responsibility he assumes, are a guarantee that the house will last, that it will have a greater value.
The strength of this edition of Archinovo is to show that using an architect can be beneficial to the environment in which the house fits.
What better example than the Halle, designed by Jean-Baptiste Barache and Sihem Lamine of the ARBA agency, which now receives the “sustainable habitat” award? They have raised from the ground a house with a large roof, low consumption, both place of life and work, with spaces separated by the wooden net.
Here is a house that, like the previous one, fits among others, in an outlying area of Rouen. No house is above ground, it’s a banality to say.
Building a house is therefore transforming the space that leads to it. We therefore pay particular attention to the development of subdivisions, whose architectural, urban and landscaping project, necessary for the development permit for subdivisions, will henceforth be established obligatorily by an architect, which may be combined with other appropriate skills. It is a measure that, with the help of parliamentarians, is included in the “freedom of creation, architect and heritage” act that I am wearing.
Similarly, every house is a collective work. It is the result of an exchange between architect and sponsor of course, but also with the town hall which issues the building permit, as well as with the various possible councils, as the CAUE that provide valuable insight and that we want to highlight in the National Architecture Strategy.
The strength of this edition of Archinovo is to show that the house is not a definitive space, petrified in a story, but always capable of being transformed. This is a challenge that lies at the heart of tomorrow’s planning and architecture: we will have to adapt more and more to changes in life, to the blurring boundaries between work and family life, aging, families mixed up with climate issues, isolation. This challenge is met with great talent by some architects selected this year: Antonin Ziegler and his Maison Observatoire, Marchi Architectes and their Black Wood House, or Emmanuelle Weiss and his Maison noire. The house is a testing ground.
The strength of this edition of Archinovo is to show, quite simply that experimentation and beauty can be accessible to all, that daring is not reserved to a few-one, that originality is not gratuitous and that it can have meaning in the space or function in which it fits. And I confess that I was seduced, just like the jury who awarded him a «special mention», by this holiday home of Sarzeau designed by Julien Perraud, Benjamin Boré and Thomas Durand, of the agency RAUM. Because this house dares.
In a neighborhood populated by small pavilions typically Breton appears this black house all in wood, with an off-center patio, which resists the monolith. But the invention, you will find it inside, with these movable rooms, which revisit the Breton closed bed and can, on occasion, be moved outside.
From an architect, the owners could have done without, since the law did not oblige them. The house is, in fact, only 69 m². But they made that choice, and they trusted, and now they have a vacation home in many incredible ways, for a very reasonable amount of money.
Encouraging homeowners to use an architect for homes, for small spaces, is finally one of the flagship measures of the act that I wear and of the National Strategy for Architecture. Together with parliamentarians, we lowered the threshold for the use of an architect from 170 to 150 m². But even below, the presence of the architect has its raison d'être. Half of the houses selected this year were below the 150 m² threshold. This is proof that the land exists and, dare I say, can be occupied. The owners will win: for those who make this choice, we will experience the reduction of the period of appraisal of the building permit.
That is in a few words, through your projects, what I wanted to tell you tonight. Architecture is not only the pleasure of great gestures, great works, great monuments, but it is an issue of everyday life and you know it better than anyone. It improves the living environment of the inhabitants. It adapts to their needs and the demands of tomorrow. It transfigures the ordinary.
To give to the ordinary a taste of extraordinary, to give a new thickness to this dream of the individual house designed by an architect and to put it within the reach of all, is a project beneficial to everyone. To the inhabitant, to the landscape, to the architect. André Bloc said he dreamt of a world where the border between art and life would no longer exist. You’re walking that path today.
Thank you.