This is the message that accompanies a curious and instructive exhibition that opens on 5 June (running until 4 October) in the 19th-century property of Boisbuchet. In the summer this bucolic corner of southwest France, between Limoges and Poitiers, is packed with international designers and young students engaged in various workshops organised by the Vitra Design Museum. Alexander von Vegesack, director of the Swiss museum, has invited Pierre Frey to organise the exhibition “Learning from vernacular”, along with Franco La Cecla and photographer Deidi von Schaewen. It presents around 40 of the 700 models from the Archives de la Construction Moderne (EPFL), including the Nubian house found in Egypt, the communal housing of the Kaluli people in Papua New Guinea, and the traditional trullo house from the Italian region of Puglia. The aim is to demonstrate that the art of building is first and foremost a cultural question that should not forget its origins. ES