CITY AS A VISION

Event: The Petropolis of Tomorrow in “City as a Vision” exhibition @ the FRAC Centre
Date: September 19, 2014 February 22, 2015
Venue: FRAC Centre, 88 rue du Colombier (Entrd Rocheplatte) 45000 Orlans

A series of projects from The Petropolis of Tomorrow have been selected to be part of the exhibition City as a Visiona at the FRAC Centre.

After World War II, architects refused to follow the diktats of functionalist architecture and engaged in a radical redefinition of the city. By carrying out a precise analysis of the sociological mutations of their times, they created urban systems capable of globally organising and anticipating new Western lifestyles. Yona Friedman was one of the first to theorize the principles of spatial urban planning on a global scale. His studies on mobility, which he presented at the International Congress of Modern Architecture in 1956, considerably influenced the development of the futurologist movement, which spanned the 1960s and of which Michel Ragon became an advocate.Through publications in magazines and as a member of the GIAP (International Group for Prospective Architecture), he shared the many researches carried out on this form of prospective urban planning: the towns imagined were plastic or organic, aerial or underground, helicoidal or oblique, shaped as arches, hills, or bridges cities of the future that stretched out into gigantic above-ground infrastructures, thus encouraging a free and continuous circulation of people and information.

Through six thematic sections, along with a hundred scale models, drawings, and photomontages, the exhibition focuses on giving an overview of this search for new territories and urban configurations capable of welcoming future city-dwellers. It illustrates how, for this generation of visionaries, experimentation and patenting innovative technical solutions always came hand in hand with the assertion of imagery as a field for creation and anticipation.

The projects presented all answer the necessity to rethink new uses for cities, to generate resources and connect the micro- scale of the individual with the macro-scale of the expanding urban territory. What logics can architects develop to generate or regenerate the contemporary city between local and global scales?

Historical section Prospective section
Archigram- Peter cook, Architecture Principe (Claude Parent Paul Virilio) Archizoom, Chanc, Constant, Justus Dahinden, Domenig + Huth, GA?nther Feuerstein, Yona Friedman, Klaus Gartler & Helmut Rieder, Vittorio Giorgini, James Guitet, GA?nter GA?nschel, Bernhard Hafner, Angela Hareiter, Haus-RA?cker-Co, Pascal Husermann, Hans Hollein, Arata Isozaki, Jozef Jankovic, Paul Maymont, MIASTO, Manfredi Nicoletti, Luigi Pellegrin, Charles P-Lahaille, Aldo Loris Rossi, Guy Rottier, Jacques Rougerie, Nicolas Schffer, Eckhard Schulze-Fielitz, Paolo Soleri,Alina Slesinska et Eustachy Kossakowski, Superstudio, Pierre Szkely, Iannis Xenakis, Znd up

Prospective Section
Ateliers Jean Nouvel, Asymptote Architecture (Hani Rashid + Lise Anne Couture), BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group), BNKR Arquitectura, Delhi 2050, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, DOMAIN Office + KAAN Architecten, Dominique Perrault Architecture, Foster + Partners, Sou Fujimoto Architects, Future Cape Town, GRAU, Heatherwick Studio, MAD Architects, NL, OMA, Oppenheim Architecture + Design, The Petropolis of Tomorrow, SL Rasch GmbH Special & Lightweight Structures, SNA?HETTA, Urban Think Tank, WOHA

Info:
FRAC Centre
88 rue du Colombier (Entre bd Rocheplatte) 45000 Orlans
September 19, 2014 February 22, 2015
Wednesday to Sunday: 12pm-7pm Late night opening until 8pm every first Thursday of the month
Exceptional Closure: 25th December, 1st January and 1st May

Curators: Marie-Ange Brayer, Emmanuelle Chiapponne-Piriou, Aurlien Vernant