“GeneroCity”
Invited architects: French Touch Collective
Curator: Francis Rambert
September 14 – November 23, 2008
XI International Architecture
Exhibition Venice Biennial
11. Mostra Internazionale di
Architettura Biennale di Venezia
Culturesfrance and the Ministry of Culture and Communication – Department of Architecture and Heritage have appointed Francis Rambert as curator of the French Pavilion at the 11th International Architecture Exhibition – Venice Biennial. In response to the Biennial’s overall theme of “Out There. Architecture beyond Building”, Francis Rambert is proposing a project entitled “GeneroCity, generous vs. generic,” to promote a dialogue on the concept of generosity. Architecture presented with regard to what “more” it can give to the city and its inhabitants.
Within the world of the architects of the French Touch Collective, the French Pavilion will bring together some fifty French teams who will build on the “optimistic” territory of the city of tomorrow.
Taking a stand against the trivialisation of cities in a time of globalisation, the Pavilion reaffirms the architect’s social role in defining lifestyles and urban habits. By steering the debate towards the value of generosity, it seeks to present the multiple forms of this generosity in architecture and a team creation which, by going beyond mere architectural quality, renews the creation of social bonds as much as the fabric of the city.
The French Touch Collective co-realizes with Francis Rambert the whole of the French Pavillon content, editorial concept and architectural and scenographic in-the-shape setting.
French production is rich and specific. The great diversity in contexts, landscapes, leads a new generation of architects to invent with optimism an everyday-life architecture, also popular and eco-aware. Who knows about all these realizations to-day ?
As a generous and optimistic collective, French Touch decides to open the presented selection to other talents, representative of French architectural production, through a vision of architecture conceived in what it can bring “further more” to the city and its inhabitants.
Beyond 15 agencies members of the French Touch Collective, another architects are also invited. Their projects feature a new approach linking context, use and creation that define, according to the Pavilion theme, a generous approach on the city, through architecture.
In order to keep GeneroCity “contemporary,” the Pavilion presents a total of 100 projects designed and developed at different scales and features a three-tiered presentation: yesterday-today-tomorrow, or revisit-explore-plan.
The Pavilion’s setting, as designed by the French Touch Collective, is itself a bearer of generosity and will reflect the responsiveness of the contemporary French scene: video projections and installations as well as project models that visitors may handle will be part of the set-up.
A reference work (a Culturesfrance/Editions Actar co-publication) accompanies the exhibition. Putting the GeneroCity value in perspective over 600 pages, it contains an exclusive interview with Jean Nouvel, winner of the 2008 Pritzker Prize.
* Since 2004, Francis Rambert has been the Director of the French Architecture Institute, City of Architecture and Heritage.
* The French Touch Collective was created in late 2006 under the impetus of young architects involved in teaching and debatting about their in-progress or completed projects.
Contact presse : Heymann, Renoult Associées / www.heymann-renoult.com
Agnès RENOULT / a.renoult@heymann-renoult.com
Sophie FLECHE – Presse nationale / s.fleche@heymann-renoult.com
Marie BAUER – Presse internationale / m.bauer@heymann-renoult.com
Contact communication
Culturesfrance / www.culturesfrance.com
Marion NAPOLY / mn@culturesfrance.com
Ministère de la culture et de la communication / Direction de l’architecture et du patrimoine
François MULLER / francois.muller@culture.gouv.fr
The French Pavilion of the 11th International Architecture Exhibition – 11. Mostra Internazionale di Architettura is produced by the Ministry of Culture and Communication / Department of Architecture and Heritage and Culturesfrance.
Culturesfrance is the operator of the French presentation at the Venice Biennial.
