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A mental landscape

The Frac in Orléans uncovers extracts from its latest acquisition: Patrick Bouchain’s complete archive.

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  • Luca Galofaro
  • 07 May 2018
  • Orléans
  • Patrick Bouchain

You can read the full article in Domus May 2018 issue. Designing, to Patrick Bouchain, means defining situations, activating a specific site using the context as a common ground of discussion between very different figures. The urban landscape is a landscape of knowledge, a mental place before it is a physical one. Architects, workers, citizens, artists are involved in the process of building a space for living in.

Img.1 Patrick Bouchain, Académie Fratellini, Saint-Denis, 2001. Sketch album. Coloured pencil on paper. 25 x 28 cm - Construction. The architect’s most important act. Bouchain has called his office Construire and his best-known book Construire Autrement, creating an architect’s manual featuring simplified language everyone can understand. Code: 016 078 002
Img.2 Patrick Bouchain, Ilôt Stephenson, quartier de l’Union, Tourcoing, 2008-2009. Model. Wood, plastic, corrugated fibreboard, paper, paint, cardboard, graphite crayon. 27.4 x 51.5 x 9 cm - Living. Experimentation with housing shows that urban issues pass through living ones. Daily life and the bustle of a place narrate a way of thinking the city. Code: 016 136 001
Img.3 Patrick Bouchain, Centre Pompidou Mobile, 2011. Model. Wood, metal, plastic, card and acrylic paint. 6.5 x 50 x 35 cm - Mobility. More than all others, the Centre Pompidou Mobile is the project that conveys his huge faith in temporary and mobile things; the city is not a static form. Code: 016 074 001
Img.4 Patrick Bouchain, Beau Geste, compagnie de danse, direction Dominique Boivin, Val-de-Reuil, 2003. Model. Wood, fabric, plastic. 27.4 x 56.2 x 34.3 cm. - Architecture. Producing architecture requires faith, placing people at the heart of a project, saving on resources, thinking in movement, resolving conflicts and overcoming obstacles. Code: 016 113 001
Img.5 Patrick Bouchain, Étude de chapiteau, s.d. Model. Man-made fabric, metal-effect wood, plastic, cardboard, card, cotton thread, graphite crayon. 15 x 26.5 x 27.5 cm - Hospitality. The topic of welcome and hospitality is primarily an ideal of life, with a clearly non-utopian dimension. Code: 016 134 001
Img.6 Patrick Bouchain, Académie Fratellini, Saint-Denis, 2001. Model. Wood, paper, plastic, cardboard. 30 x 28 x 18 cm - Circus. Just like the circus, humans need a tangible relationship with the ground. This is the core concept of the Accademia Fratellini, an original place with constructions resting on the ground and set up as a temporary camp. Code: 016 078 001
Img.7 Patrick Bouchain, Le Cheval bleu, Aubervilliers, 2002. Model. Plastic, wood, metal, cardboard. 28 x 72 x 81 cm. - Temporary. Le Cheval Bleu originated as a temporary project. Temporary is not a transient classification; the wooden theatre for Bartabas was constructed on a protected area where building was forbidden. The architect applied to occupy the site temporarily, happy to return it and demolish the theatre when so requested by the council. The project boosted local development and the theatre is now surrounded by ten buildings. Le Cheval Bleu has become part of the area’s history. Code: 016 130 001
Img.8 Patrick Bouchain, Le Cabaret Sauvage, Parc de la Villette, Paris, 1997. Model. Wood, cloth, plastic, aluminium, lead. 10 x 57 x 57 cm - Event. An event has to make the maximum impact, exploiting illusion, the careful use of materials and an innovative programme. This makes its collaborations key – e.g. with artists of the calibre of Daniel Buren and Claes Oldenburg. Code: 016 096 001
Read also: Domus 1024 editorial by Michele de Lucchi

For the FRAC the archive is not only an object of investigation, a place of study, but a medium through which to create new visions and reconstructions. In his work the architect is the person who collects and confers order on a vision of the world, through different writings, of which the project is only one of the pieces. (…) The form of the process is more important than the form of the object. In this way, each project collected in this visual atlas is not a reflection on form but an endless variation on a precise idea of architecture.

Discover the contents of Domus 1024, May 2018, dedicated to Landscape
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