Exposing urban utopias based on transport systems: a retrospective analysis of the Grand Paris Pavilion for the Architecture and Landscape Biennial in Versailles

Arnaud Passalacqua (1, 2)

1 LIED (UMR_8236) - Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire des Energies de Demain
2 ICT (EA_337) - Identités, Cultures, Territoires

This paper proposes to come back on the process that led to the opening of a Grand Paris Pavilion during the Architecture and Landscape Biennial in Versailles (May-July 2019). The installation of this exhibition in an ancient post office temporarily available, in proximity to the Château de Versailles, has become one of the main points of this new event. The choice has been made to focus on utopias, specially those based on transport systems in the Paris area, and on the Grand Paris circle underground project, with the installation of 68 models of the new stations due to be realised during the 2020s. This configuration opens to various questions that are addressed by the paper: the differences of perceptions between car-based utopias and railway-based ones, the way history can be used by the actors of the contemporary project, the differences between the exhibition of authentic mobility systems and the choice, made in Versailles, to propose only reproductions of drawings and planning documents… Another interesting point lies in the interaction between historians, responsible for the choice of utopias and the elaboration of narratives, and architects and designers, who proposed the spatial organization of the exhibition, in a place with its own constraints.

Domaines: Histoire; Architecture, aménagement de l'espace

Arnaud Passalacqua. Exposing urban utopias based on transport systems: a retrospective analysis of the Grand Paris Pavilion for the Architecture and Landscape Biennial in Versailles. Traffic, Transport and Mobility (T2M) Conference 2019, 2019, Paris, France. ⟨hal-02415276⟩