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« Down to Earth »Exhibition

A new, more sensitive understanding of the soils we shape, which in turn shape our lives, our cities, and our landscapes.

The exhibition « Down to Earth » will present a made in the Île-de-France, living, large-format model of the Île-de-France region. At the surface, you’ll see the algae, mosses and lichens that grow in our forests, gardens and urban areas. A long geological cross-section of the Paris basin reveals what’s going on beneath our feet, accompanied by an explosive and experimental map designed by the Société d’objets cartographiques (SOC). The exhibition will showcase uncommon scales and overlooked resources in formats that are as spectacular as they are poetic, sensitive and scientific.

Exhibition by L’Institut Paris Region

Eric Garault/ L’Institut Paris Region
Pierre-Yves Brunaud/ L’Institut Paris Region
Amàco/ L’Institut Paris Region

« We have a great need for operations that resensitise, reimagine, repopulate the imagination », writes philosopher Isabelle Stengers in A common soil, published in 2019. The exhibition « Down to Earth » aims to respond to this call. It will reveal the links that unite Île-de-France’s geographic foundation, land use and soil use, so we can better understand how we are anchored to this territory. Geological materials have shaped the valleys and landscapes where human settlements have proliferated. The qualities of the soil have allowed the development of certain cultures, forests, vernacular architectures… This base constitutes our foundation on a daily basis. Understanding it better will allow us to better inhabit and live with it.

Cécile Diguet

Director of the department of Urban planning, Development and Territories at L’Institut Paris Region,exhibition curator

Practical information on the exhibition

« Visible, invisible »Exhibition

The invention of new terroirs through a material and energetic approach to environments.

Faced with ecological emergency, new architectural approaches are emerging. More than ever, physical resources are seen as the starting point for spatial design. The Biennale will offer a space of discovery, exchange and sharing around the mechanisms that transform land, materials and energies - both visible and invisible - in the act of construction.

Displayed through the school of architecture as well as in the exceptional site of the Petite Ecurie, this exhibition is structured in three stages : a « monumenta » of material and energetic resources constituting the terroir of these creations (stone, earth, wood, water, sun, wind…); testimony to the ambitious practices underway in Île-de-France and elsewhere; a platform for sharing and experimentation in order to pursue this research together.

Exposition by Ecole national supérieure d’Architecture de Versailles

Credit Simon Boudvin
Credit Eva Le Roi
Credit Stéphane Ruchaud

« The cabin or the fire? ». In 1969, the critic Reyner Banham defined architecture as a dual strategy tied to an environment, illustrating this with the story of a tribe that « arrived one night to a camp well-stocked on wood ». To keep their body temperature stable during the night, the potential of this wood could be exploited using two methods: building a shelter – the structural solution – or fuelling a fire or hearth – the energetic solution.

Half a century later, as environmental stakes become more urgent, we invite you to rediscover this material-energetic reasoning used by architects in the creation of our living spaces’ adapted forms.

It’s also your turn to contribute to the creation of the visible and invisible aesthetics of new terroirs, rich and conscious of their resources and environments.

Guillaume Ramillien

Architect, exhibition curator

Nicolas Dorval-Bory

Architect, exhibition curator

Practical information on the exhibition

« La Préséance du vivant »Exhibition

At the heart of the King’s vegetable garden, a committed reflection, both joyful and profound, on our current relationship with nature

With “Precedence of the living,” you will explore contemporary landscape production with ecosystems at the centre of the projects. This exhibition-garden will offer an encounter, a convergence of scientific knowledge with the poetic wonder of our relationships with others. It will shine a light on the diversity of our links to living things and the wealth of beings inhabiting this planet. You will be able to find these reflections in an issue of Landscape Notebooks and participate in the King’s vegetable garden, by planting a collaborative garden: “The Vegetable Garden of Others”.

You can also put yourself in the shoes of a landscaping student, who discovers how to “care for the soil” in landscaping projects, through the exhibition “Project Earth,” which will present the students’ finished projects.

An invitation to connect the challenges of the garden with the challenges facing the planet and the protection of ecosystems.

Proposal submitted by L’Ecole nationale supérieure du paysage

Credit Fabien David
Credit Danilo Capasso
Credit Vincent Gravé

This exhibition will introduce you to the most cutting-edge landscaping projects on questions of ecology and the relationship to living things. At the King’s vegetable garden, you can also participate in the planting of the « Vegetable Garden of Others ». This garden, born from the labours of all those who wish to be involved, is an invitation to get to work. Come with your seeds, we’ll provide the tools, seeds, and seedlings you need to express your creativity alongside us so that together we can build a common knowledge of living things. On-site, you will find dishes made from ingredients harvested in the King’s vegetable garden. You will leave with a bit of the collective magic that will have given life to this garden.

Gilles Clément

Landscaper, exhibition curator

Miguel Georgieff

Atelier Coloco, exhibition curator

Pablo Georgieff

Atelier Coloco, exhibition curator

Nicolas Bonnenfant

Atelier Coloco, exhibition curator

Practical information on the exhibition

« Terre! Land in sight! »Exhibition

Three large-format installations for a dialogue with the world.

Three Global Award for Sustainable Architecture laureates from Mexico, Jordan and Thailand have designed life-sized installations, to respond to the crucial question of our times: How do we reinvent our habitat in the face of a climate emergency and the depletion of our resources?

These installations will each present a vision of architecture, based on the synergy between global and local knowledge, rooted in unique cultural venues: self-development methods and vernacular know-how, green tech and local climate sciences, global circulation of goods and circular economies.
Faced with these complex challenges, the architects go beyond the traditional limits of their profession:

Rozana Montiel (Mexico) emphasizes the role of the architect as a political catalyst with the installation “Stand up for the seas !”.

Ammar Khammash (Jordan) develops the link between architect and universal synergies in the installation “In search of the horizon”.

Boonserm Premthada (Thailand) explores the relationship between the architect and living things with the installation “The elephant theatre”.

Exhibition by the Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine

Credit Rozana Montiel
Credit Ammar Khammash
Credit Boonserm Premthada

A hundred years ago, faced with the onset of the industrial era and the brutal emergence of the big city, Bauhaus architects took on the ambitious goal of ‘civilising the modern world at the pace of changing societies,’ in the words of Walter Gropius.

Why then, shouldn’t the architects of the 21st century take on the ambitious goal of preserving the future of the inhabited world at the pace of changing ecosystems?

Demonstrative and playful at the same time, these three installations will allow you to better understand how architecture can confront the great ecological rifts that separate us from the 20th century. By inviting us to create meaning in the world we live in, these installations reinvent the idea of progress and awaken the hope of an inhabitable planet for all living things.

Jana Revedin

Architect and urban planner PhD, professor at École spéciale d’architecture, exhibition curator

Practical information on the exhibition

« The Pavilion of the Grand Paris Express »Exhibition

An immersive exhibition about the biggest urban project completed in Europe.

The Société du Grand Paris and Dominique Perrault present an immersive exhibition on the new metro and its urban, architectural, and environmental ambition.

This exhibition takes the form of a pavilion inside which a 360° film is shown retracing the adventure of this urban adventure: the history of Paris’ metro, the worksites, the tunnels, the new stations and the trains will revolve all around the public.

Outside the pavilion, the exhibition will present historical maps of the Grand Paris and maps of the 68 new station boroughs. It will detail the urban changes and the ecological opportunities enabled by the new metro, like the valorization of the excavated soils during the digging of tunnels, and the architectural projects of the stations will be set out through a selection of station models and interviews of the designers of the project.

Exhibition by La Société du Grand Paris

Credit Promio
Credit Dominique Perrault
Credit Dominique Perrault

Through this exhibition, French savoir-faire in infrastructure, architecture and city planning is under the spotlight, centred around the group of international architects, engineers, designers and artists that were involved, an homage to Europe and its capacity to produce large-scale metropolitan projects with strong environmental ambitions. The immersive journey through this pavilion offers visitors a unique vantage point in the middle of a work in progress, from the construction of a complex infrastructure to its influence on the diversity of the territories it crosses. As mobility becomes an essential issue for the future of cities around the world, this project meets up with all populations living in regional or global capitals.

At the heart of contemporary issues, I would like this exhibition we created to question and show the synergy of the different skill sets put in service of a model of metropolitan development, one that promotes the construction of a city that gives confidence to its population, that’s both dense and nice to live in, connected, diverse, attractive and sustainable.

Dominique Perrault

Architect, urban planner, member of l’Institut,
curator and designer of the pavilion

Practical information on the exhibition

« Territories in Transformation »Exhibition

The Quartier de Gally project: an exploration of the fundamental role played by the soil in our territories in transformation.

The reconversion of 20th century industrial areas and the requalification of agricultural and peri-urban outskirts have sparked major changes over the past decades, making space for tomorrow’s public space to reinvent itself. And new challenges are already emerging in the outskirts of our cities, with the decline of commercial districts and their huge parking lots… So what’s there to do?

These transformations are closely linked to land movement, the definition of soil, and water management. The underlying processes are based on natural phenomena, but also on agricultural practices, and sometimes on civil engineering practices. From a regional scale to a city scale with its artificial land, these transformations establish specific physical cohesions where life takes hold.

Exposition by Michel Desvigne and Icade

Credit Agence MDP
Credit Agence MDP
Credit Agence MDP

When it comes to landscape, we often only talk about its protection. It would appear that transforming the landscape is considered suspect. Typically, when landscaping architects speak about “land” or “geography”, we tend to think of natural geography, when it’s actually about human geography, because our territory is largely shaped by human activities, practices and relations.

The observation of territories, of the interferences between natural and artificial phenomena, allows us to envisage new transformations. The challenge is not to embellish a difficult heritage, but to take advantage of the particularity of the configurations we see in order to respond to contemporary challenges.

Michel Desvigne

landscaper, exhibition curator

Practical information on the exhibition

« district 2024
BEYOND the Athletes’ Village » Exhibition

An immersion in the process of creating the future athletes’ village for Paris 2024.

On the first floor of the former Versailles post office, the exhibition “District 2024: beyond the Athletes’ Village” gives visitors an in-depth look at the planning process for this large-scale temporary neighbourhood, two years ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic games.

Discover its conception, its union with the Seine but also the stories and legends that were developed, the multiple research paths that were explored, which day after day fuelled the creation process of this city of tomorrow.

Taking up more than 500 square metres, the exhibition was conceived as a large space for reflection, as well as a space to learn and exchange. Organised around a large forum, it invites visitors to participate in numerous conferences and debates moderated by the exhibition’s designers, architects and landscapers.

Exhibition by the Dominique Perrault Architecture agency

Credit Société de livraison des ouvrages olympiques - Solideo / Dominique Perrault / Ingérop / Une Fabrique de la Ville / CITEC / Agence TER / UrbanEco / Jean-Paul Lamoureux
Credit Société de livraison des ouvrages olympiques - Solideo / Dominique Perrault / Ingérop / Une Fabrique de la Ville / CITEC / Agence TER / UrbanEco / Jean-Paul Lamoureux
Credit Dominique Perrault

The future of the Athletes’ Village is greater than the sum of its parts. It’s about creating an exemplary neighbourhood by 2025, and on a longer term 2050, that’s capable of temporarily offering an exceptional welcome to athletes and their delegations. But this exhibition is above all, a long-term urban reflection that aims to create a new sustainable neighbourhood, a piece of the city that’s free to everyone, deeply connected to the larger territory, a theatre for an unprecedented density of urban transformations.

With this exhibition, I would like to present to the public this unique design approach, which consists of revealing what exists, what has existed and what will exist. By setting up what we’ve called “urban planning workshops,” which bring together project management teams and local players, we’ve succeeded in going beyond the strict limits of the project’s operation to better anchor it within its geography and its territory.

This entry goes beyond the simple affair of operational planning or hosting the Olympics family. It’s about shedding light on a potential legacy that will help make our planet more liveable.

Dominique Perrault

Architect, urban planner, exhibition curator

Practical information on the exhibition

« Vegetation and Architecture » Exhibition

A wall of stone, inhabited by flora and fauna

The wall of biodiversity questions our relationship to living things in our cities. Designed in the context of a years-long research project by the agency ChartierDalix, this structure is at once a massive load-bearing wall and a vertical soil, inhabited by flora and fauna.

Terrestrial, compact and enveloping, it’s likened to a folly that punctuates the promenade.

Exhibition by the Métropole du Grand Paris

Credit Chartier Dalix
Credit Chartier Dalix
Credit Chartier Dalix

Two openings facing the Palace of Versailles offer a series of perspectives. A curved roof, which appears to be levitating, covers the dry stone structure. This exhibition is also a presentation of the hidden resources in a city: It exposes the potential linked to reserves of materials, the issues tied to recycling them and it sparks a reflection on the restoration of environmental spaces in urban areas. It testifies to the range of possibilities made possible by reuse, savoir-faire and imagination for tomorrow’s constructions.

Chartier Dalix

Designers and project managers of the biodiversity wall

Practical information on the exhibition

« Journey to the Centre of the Earth » Exhibition

The discovery of mineral, natural, raw masterpieces

Contrary to its peaceful appearance, our planet has been in perpetual motion since its creation 5 billion years ago. From its boiling 4,300-degree Celsius core to its continental plates sitting on a mantle of magma, these movements incite some 100,000 earthquakes and 60 volcanic eruptions every day.

These geological events create mixtures of multicoloured minerals and metallic oxides, giving rise to exclusive natural mineral tables, true testimonies to life on our planet.

Exhibition by the Marbriers de Versailles (Stonemasons of Versailles) - MDY

Credit MDY
Credit MDY
Credit MDY

An essential element of the arts and architecture, marble was considered by the Greeks to be a living substance. This timeless substance enchants you with its colours, its nuances, which sometimes give you the impression that you’re face to face with an artist’s painting, or a photograph of the earth, as seen from space!

These artworks, displayed along the Avenue de Paris, and also in complement at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Paysage and at the King’s Vegetable Garden, are true, natural and raw masterpieces. The 48 plaques on display are from quarries on 5 continents.

With this exhibition, I invite you to discover this unique and admirable material, to let yourself be swept away by its breccias, granites, marbles, onyx, quartzite and other stones, which, on top of their beauty, also transmit to us their energy.

Philippe Ledrans

Stonemason

Practical information on the exhibition

Expositions

« Down to Earth »Exhibition

A new, more sensitive understanding of the soils we shape, which in turn shape our lives, our cities, and our landscapes.

Cécile Diguet

« Visible, invisible »Exhibition

The invention of new terroirs through a material and energetic approach to environments.

Guillaume Ramillien

Nicolas Dorval-Bory

« La Préséance du vivant »Exhibition

At the heart of the King’s vegetable garden, a committed reflection, both joyful and profound, on our current relationship with nature

Gilles Clément

Miguel Georgieff

Pablo Georgieff

Nicolas Bonnenfant

« Terre! Land in sight! »Exhibition

Three large-format installations for a dialogue with the world.

Jana Revedin

« The Pavilion of the Grand Paris Express »Exhibition

An immersive exhibition about the biggest urban project completed in Europe.

Dominique Perrault

« Territories in Transformation »Exhibition

The Quartier de Gally project: an exploration of the fundamental role played by the soil in our territories in transformation.

Michel Desvigne

« district 2024 BEYOND the Athletes’ Village » Exhibition

An immersion in the process of creating the future athletes’ village for Paris 2024.

Dominique Perrault

« Vegetation and Architecture » Exhibition

A wall of stone, inhabited by flora and fauna

Chartier Dalix

« Journey to the Centre of the Earth » Exhibition

The discovery of mineral, natural, raw masterpieces

Philippe Ledrans

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« district 2024
BEYOND the Athletes’ Village » Exhibition