Composer les mesures de son espace

‘Being able to compose the measures of one’s own space, almost on a daily basis, is important when you’re an artist’, declared Rem Koolhaas in an interview with Guillaume Houzé and François Quintin. The construction of a tower in the middle of the courtyard at number 9 Rue du Plâtre by OMA, the agency co-founded by the Dutch architect, surely illustrates this requirement. In the renovated building of Lafayette Anticipations – Fondation d’entreprise Galeries Lafayette, this steel construction surrounds two sets of superimposed platforms that can move vertically along rails. The multiplicity of configurations of these platforms offers forty-nine possible ways of modifying the building’s interior volumes. This penchant for modularity is part of the rich history of various 20th-century avant-garde movements (Futurism, Constructivism, Surrealism, Metabolism or ‘Radical Architecture’) and their different architectural revolutions. Mobility, flexibility and permanent transformation have often contributed to the discourse of a renewed architectural practice, with the desire to free architecture from the traditional constraints of solidity and permanence, thereby affording users a greater freedom. But this interest is also part of a pragmatic line of research, regularly revisited by Rem Koolhaas, on the architectural motif of the elevator. Studied since 1978 in Delirious New York for its intrinsic relationship to modernity (allowing the construction of skyscrapers, the elevator allows the modern city to exist), it has been developed in various projects, some realized, others not, by the OMA Agency. Composer les mesures de son espace brings together several key figures from different fields around architect Rem Koolhaas. These include: Isabelle Backouche (historian and Director of Studies at EHESS), Boris Charmatz (choreographer and Director of the Musée de la Danse – National Choreographic Centre in Rennes), Simon Fujiwara (artist), Joseph Grima (architect and Director of the Design Academy Eindhoven), Hou Hanru (curator and Artistic Director of MAXXI in Rome) and Bruno Latour (philosopher and anthropologist). This exchange is moderated by Chris Dercon, Director of the Volksbühne in Berlin and member of the board of directors of Lafayette Anticipations - Fondation d’entreprise Galeries Lafayette. All of the forum’s participants are invited to contribute freely to the conversation, which has as its starting point the recently renovated building. We will gradually open this exchange to explore the artistic, social, and political issues that await the Fondation and its teams. Download our booklet!