Discover the French Pavilion inaugurated at the 16th Venice International Architecture Exhibition

The Infinite Places proposal, from the Encore Heureux team, made up of architects Nicola Delon, Julien Choppin and Sébastien Eymard, highlights places produced in an original and inventive way, generating quality architectural processes.

Paying attention to the whole territory, the project promotes initiatives from civil society and communities which embody a certain freedom of experimentation in the spirit of the "Permis de faire" and the possibilities offered by architecture. By the values ​​of programmatic freedom and generosity that it activates, it fully responds to the Freespace theme, chosen by the two commissioners general of the 16th edition of the Venice International Architecture Biennale, the Irish architects Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara.

The inauguration of the French Pavilion took place in the presence of Laurence Tison-Vuillaume, director of the cabinet of the Minister of Culture, and Pierre Buhler, President of the French Institute, the operator of the French Pavilion.

The curators propose four exhibition spaces which present and define what an Infinite Place is. Like a cabinet of curiosities, the large central hall of the Pavilion presents objects taken from each of the ten places as well as augmented models. This first room seeks to transmit the soul of these places: to expose the sensitivity of what takes place.

In the room on the right, the visitor continues to explore these ten places through a series of photographs, Instants d'Infinis by Alexa Brunet, which depicts the actors of these places for original portraits. Jochen Gerner's drawings accompany these photographs and chronologically restore the history of these places.

In the room on the left, thirty-two individual or collective words from those who carry out the projects, initiate them, build them, study them, manage them and inhabit them are combined. They are illustrated with portraits by Jochen Gerner.

Visitors to the Pavilion are also invited to contribute to an inventory of the infinite places distributed around the world in the room on the right. To allow them to fill in the files made available to them, the curators have identified certain characteristic features of an Infinite Place:

• A place that awakens a neglected
• An inspiring but not reproducible place
• A place of welcome, refuge, solidarity
• A place of work, life, party
• A place that explores collective governance
• A place that cultivates the unexpected
• A place with no obligation to consume
• A place with high ceilings
• A fragile and powerful place at the same time

In the very last room, a workshop has been set up in which the ten invited places will regularly take turns or collectively, during the six months of the exhibition. The Pavilion was then activated and transformed into a space for experimentation, work and collective design.

Team

• Still happy
  Nicola Delon, Julien Choppin and Sébastien Eymard

The Infinite Places

• The Hôtel Pasteur (Rennes)
• The Centquatre-Paris (Paris)
• Postal Sorting (Avignon)
• The Great Neighbors (Paris)
• The 6B (Saint-Denis)
• The Convention (Auch)
• The Beautiful of May Wasteland (Marseille)
• The Medici Workshops (Clichy-sous-Bois-Montfermeil)
• The Happiness Farm (Nanterre)
• The Great Hall (Columbelles)

The ministers and the French Institute thank all the partners who wished to commit themselves to the realization of the French Pavilion of the International Architecture Biennale of Venice.

They particularly express their gratitude to the Emerige Endowment Fund and to SNCF for their exceptional and decisive commitment. They would like to salute the Grand Paris Express Endowment Fund, the Ministry of Territorial Cohesion, the Caisse des Dépôts, the Quartus group, the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation, Plaine Commune and the SEM Plaine Commune for their decisive support. They salute the involvement of many communities: city of Paris, city of reindeer, city of Auch, city of Clichy-sous-Bois, city of Montfermeil, Grand Paris Grand Est and the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region . Finally, they pay tribute to the companies BTP Consultants, REI Habitat, Paris Batignolles Aménagement, Lumion, Cenomane, APUR, Velum and Ambiance Lumière for their generous commitment.

To know more : placesinfinis.com