Investigating, collecting, prefiguring: the case of Marseille’s MuCEM

  • Publish On 7 July 2021
  • Denis Chevallier
  • 5 minutes

Denis Chevallier has headed MuCEM’s Research and Education Department since its inception. An ethologist and museum curator, he was tasked with prefiguring the new museum and ran many ‘collection surveys’ to inform its exhibitions, emphasizing objects to foster connections as is key in achieving a socially relevant museum.

Bibliography

explore

Vidéo

Jérôme Denis, David Pontille, Bérénice Gaussuin, Fanny Lopez

Vidéo

Restoration, transformation, maintenance

In this round-table discussion, the four researchers look at the issue of transition through the prism of the different notions of maintenance, transformation, repair and restoration. These concepts are reminiscent of the issues of destruction, reconstruction and rehabilitation in architecture.

Discover
Podcast

“ What will Paris be like under 50°C? How can we postpone this scenario and be better prepared for it? ”

Paris at 50°C

Alexandre Florentin

Podcast

“ What will Paris be like under 50°C? How can we postpone this scenario and be better prepared for it? ”


Paris at 50°C

Our dense, mineral-rich capital is ill-suited to the extreme heat we’ll increasingly have to cope with. So what adaptation strategies can we implement? This is what we asked to Alexandre Florentin, Paris councillor responsible for resilience and climate issues. He chaired the “Paris at 50 degrees” mission, which delivered its report a few months ago: what fields of action for architects and urban designers?

Discover
Vidéo
Vidéo

The art of artificial life

Justine Emard is a visual artist. Her installations use AI to understand the living, exploring the boundaries between organic life and artificial intelligence. Bee swarms, encephalographic recordings and prehistoric paintings become learning supports for algorithms that, contrary to dystopian imaginations, generate new supra-hyper-organisms.

Discover
Vidéo

Antoine Laugier, Thanh-Phong Lê

Vidéo

Aesthetic of Structures

Aesthetic of Structures is a collective work published by the Architects-Engineers & Engineers-Architects association (AAIIA). Established agencies, young practitioners, researchers and students discuss a new relationship with structures, moving away from the Vitruvian principles of utility, solidity and beauty, towards an economy of materials, reversibility of use and the reuse of materials. Here we meet two of the book’s designers: architect-engineer Antoine Laugier and graphic designer Thanh-Phong Lê, who give us an insight into the book, as an object and as a structure.

Discover
Vidéo

Elisabeth Bouchaud, Cyril Pressacco, Denis Macrez, Ana Hedan, Paul Vergonjeanne

Vidéo

Stone

Discover the inaugural lecture of the “Alma Matter” series! In a world where the myth of abundance is collapsing, this series of lectures looks at what matter really has to offer. Actors, professions, economies, temporalities, geopolitics: how do contemporary issues of creation take shape through those of matter? Each talk focuses on a particular material, and brings together its stakeholders in a dialogue. The use of stone in construction declined during the twentieth century. Today, its return is acclaimed for its qualities: inertia, durability, low-emission processing, local presence… but what techniques and applications will be used in 2024? As part of the City Metabolism Chair supported by the Université Paris Sciences & Lettres.

Discover
Vidéo

Justine Emard, Nicolas Bourriaud, Pierre Pauze

Vidéo

Artificial Intelligence in the creation process

AI is a new form of intelligence whose development is stirring up concerns and dystopian fables. Far from replacing human intelligence, AIs are emerging as new tools to be trained, controlled and shaped to achieve the desired result. For the artist, photographer, architect, film-maker, musician or illustrator, AIs become an agent with which to collaborate, resulting in co-creation. Inaugural lecture of the “AI and Creation” series at the Stream Innovation Center.

Discover
Podcast

“ Sewers are the mirror image of what happens on the surface. ”

What sewers say about us

Catherine Carré, Thomas Thiebault

Podcast

“ Sewers are the mirror image of what happens on the surface. ”


What sewers say about us

Did you know that we have a lot to learn from sewers? Sewers contain numerous chemical indicators that provide information about the practices of people living above ground, such as the use of medicines and drugs, diet and the state of intestinal flora. By focusing on the city of Paris, the EGOUTS (sewers) research project, funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR), is seeking to shed light on public policy ‘through the dark side of the City of Light’.

Discover
Article
Article

"The network is alive" — Networks and those who maintain them

Les sous sols français comptent environ 910 000 km de canalisations de distribution d’eau potable, et plus d’1,4 millions de km de lignes électriques. Indispensables dans nos vies quotidiennes, ils sont pourtant invisibilisés et de plus en plus questionnés à l’aune d’enjeux écologiques et technologiques qui poussent nos territoires à se transformer. Mais ces infrastructures ne peuvent-elles pas être perçues comme un patrimoine qu’il s’agit d’entretenir et dont il faut prendre soin ?

Discover