At home or in the city, we are beings of space: the built world shapes our lives, accompanies our uses and leaves its mark on our minds. Yet architecture remains an isolated knowledge. Isolated knowledge, certainly, yet fundamental, because it is through architecture that the world becomes habitable, nature becomes landscape, and the practical necessity of walls is transformed into spatial generosity. It is also through architecture that mankind inhabits not only space but also time: of everyday life, of the century, and of the ecosystem.
"Art complet" in the words of Valéry, architecture has the privilege of reconciling art and utility. This course highlights the aesthetic, political, technical and ecological challenges of architecture through a selection of exemplary projects and buildings.
How has architecture contributed to world order since Antiquity? How have architectural and urban projects triggered or accompanied major social transformations?
An art of representation par excellence, architecture has always been the expression of the power in place: once one of religion or princes, yesterday the one of administration and industry, nowadays the one of the market. Simultaneously, architecture has established itself as its own form of knowledge, drawing on the programs of worship, palaces, equipment and housing to create buildings whose meaning goes beyond their function. In the last century, the fathers of modern architecture transformed technical invention into social progress. In the 21st century, architectural and urban projects face a number of challenges: reducing spatial inequalities, reconverting industrial wasteland, enhancing public space and contributing to the energy transition.
Added to these challenges are the fundamental paradoxes that architectural projects are called upon to overcome: how to respond to the imperatives of a specific commission, through a form that is destined to endure? How do you take on the constraints of a specific context, and at the same time convey a universal thought? How can we reconcile the time of the commission, the time of our civilizations and the time - which is beyond us - of the planet? By which means does the art of planning preserve "personal space" while organizing "living together"?
In fact, the architectural and urban plan is becoming increasingly rare facing two symmetrical realities: on the one hand, the proliferation of poor models promoted by companies - from catalog pavilions to insignificant apartment blocks - which are devouring the countryside and banalize our streets; on the other, arbitrary gestures disconnected from use, whose effect lasts only the length of a chronicle. These two observations are not inevitable: it is possible to invent, through architectural and urban plans, places that are at once singular, welcoming and sustainable in the fullest sense of the term.
We will study the built world through the fundamental notions that architecture shares with the other arts and humanities (painting, cinema, philosophy, history), such as intimacy, the gaze, movement, technique, beauty and tradition. Some of these are now being redefined: the notion of "space" has been extended to include social networks, and that of "time" is being reconsidered in light of ecological issues.
In architecture, to understand, you have to learn how to look. Consequently, texts are far from sufficient. That's why this course is based on a corpus of places and buildings with which ideas are at one. Far from the austerity of an exclusively text-based course, each of the thematic sessions is supported by abundant and varied iconography (photographs and plans), from Antiquity to the present day.
A complete, illustrated handout- just like a book - is given to students in March.
Evaluation: A 4-hour essay in French. It tests both the quality of expression (clarity, style, relevance) and the solidity of the argument (authoritative arguments, personal opinions).
Only handwritten personal notes and hard-copy language dictionaries are allowed during the tests, except for other printed documents or handouts, as well as electronic dictionaries and translators.
Course language: French
- Teaching coordinator: Piechaczyk Brice