Seminar

This seminar aims to develop research into “making” in architecture and the visual arts. Practice spatial, bodily and material experimentation in the field, in situation, to question the materiality of places and territories, their scales and their representations.
Study creative processes in contemporary art as they relate to architecture, cities and territories. Demonstrate how in situ plastic and architectural interventions can stimulate new dynamics of space and urban imagination, and how they affect the way territories are “made”.

This seminar offers students the opportunity to develop their dissertation based on an artistic practice carried out in a territory of their choice – material intervention practice on a scale of 1 and/or filmic practice of urban places.

– Courses, methodological workshops and research follow-up
– Production of a visual work and writing of a progress report. Creation of a corpus. Interviews, narratives and possible scenarios. Matching conceptual approaches with the plastic approaches developed.

Scenography is considered an art of place, in that its vocation is to shape the performance space for a given work. Scenography thus regulates the spectator’s relationship with the work in a certain symbolic context. Today, scenographers are called upon in fields other than theater, such as museums, exhibitions, fashion shows, gardens, architecture and public spaces. Scenography is a tool, in its ability to give form and, above all, space to the imaginary… not through a given and definitively fixed location, but through the shifts that the representation makes from a real location to an imaginary one, and from the imaginary location to the real one. .

continuous monitoring

Courses, conferences, visits and meetings. Dissertation follow-up, Memoir, logbook.

How can art and film enrich architectural thinking, while at the same time serving as fundamental critical tools for architectural practice?

Considered as both an aesthetic and a political gesture, cinema enables us to tell the story of spaces, cities and territories, acting as a seismograph of man’s relationship with the places he inhabits or passes through.

This seminar is aimed at students wishing to engage in research into architecture, the city and/or landscape through cinematic reflection and practice. Reflection and practice will be enriched by questions emanating from the visual and narrative arts, as well as from anthropology and philosophy, in relation to architecture.

Continuous assessment and pre-mémoire due at the end of the semester

Formulate a research topic and problem, draw up a plan and biblio-filmography, identify film locations.

The aim of this seminar is to continue analyzing the panorama of ecological transition issues in terms of urban production processes, by focusing on the production of sustainable housing and cities, both from a theoretical and conceptual angle, and from the point of view of the practices of players (professionals, citizens, decision-makers, etc.).
Throughout the semester, the aim is to deepen students’ understanding of a research topic, so that in S9 they can finalize the production of their dissertation.
This work is built into the progression and continuity of the S7 courses.

-Attendance and active participation in debates; reading notes; biographical notes; moderation of debates; preparation of a pre-dissertation (definition of a subject and a problem, presentation of a working method, bibliography).
-Continuous assessment 40%, pre-dissertation 60%.

– Research seminar: This semester, students are invited to co-produce a critical primer on the sustainable city, in line with the themes studied in S7 or as part of their dissertations. This pedagogical space aims to experiment with an alternative framework for knowledge production, based on new situations. This will enable students to delve more deeply into their research topic and come face-to-face with people involved in reflection and analysis (researchers, practitioners, activists, etc.).
-Methodology workshop: Methodological support will focus on developing and deepening the subject of the dissertation, constructing the problematic, working methods (researching sources, exploiting data, bibliographical work) and field analysis.
Dissertation follow-up
Hours: 2h CM + 1h30 methodological workshop + 1h individual follow-up

The aim of the seminar is to introduce students to architectural research. The aim is to grasp architecture as a field of knowledge under construction, to experiment with research tools and methods, and to acquire a critical eye. This objective will be applied in a privileged way to housing architecture, by opening the investigation to several scales and disciplinary approaches. Starting from the point of view of design, the research will weave together approaches in order to construct specific problematics and hypotheses for this transdisciplinary object of study, between history, process, spatiality, reception and transformation. The research will thus cross the methods of investigation and analysis of architecture, history and the human sciences to question the architectures of the habitat in a retrospective and prospective way, by questioning both the contemporary stakes and the knowledge and theories built up over time. A kind of “project archaeology”, the research will deconstruct the design process and the multiplicity of parameters that determine it.

Attendance; contribution to discussions; presentations; validation of pre-dissertation stages 40% continuous assessment and 60% final presentation (pre-dissertation).

presentations; validation of pre-memoire stages

As part of the “Inhabiting Urban Worlds” field of study, the seminar will examine, from a socio-political and aesthetic perspective, emerging practices (in the fields of architecture and urban planning, as well as art and design in public space) that combine concern for the preservation and restoration of ecosystems with concern for a new ecology of social relations (particularly in urban environments). The approach adopted will be clearly trans-disciplinary, and will endeavor to create links with project teaching.

Students’ active participation in the course (through presentations and intermediate exercises) will be highly valued. Each semester, the progress of the research will be assessed. At the end of semester 8, a detailed plan and the first stages of writing will be required as part of an intermediate dissertation.

Explore the cultures of architecture and landscape through the complexity of their relationship and recent developments.
Explore the ideas shaping today’s world through critical analysis of architectural projects, urban fragments, landscapes and territories.
This will enable us to think and design architecture and landscape together, beyond the technical demands of metropolitan development and energy concerns.

Participation in courses and debates.
A summary of the seminar’s contributions, supplemented by contributions from compulsory or optional lectures related to the dissertation topic.

The seminar (28 hours) is organized around papers presented by members of the “Paysage” team and by external guests active in the fields of landscape, architecture and the city, as well as the arts, sciences and literature. It gives rise to a debate based on the above-mentioned themes.
Supervision of the dissertation (21h) is carried out by a referent teacher (60%) and in group sessions (40%).

A bibliography of references will be distributed during the course.

This seminar is a place of dual development:
-Collective, that of the construction of an analytical and critical thought of the international human spatial productions and their mutations on the long time.
-Individual: the patient, cumulative workshop of master’s thesis production, based on the reasoned construction of a specific subject and problematic, a referenced corpus, and a posture specific to each student.

CPL / JJ / VL

– Course and reading notes.
– A thematic dossier.

Magistral course in French.
Languages accepted (individual corrections): Spanish, English, Portuguese, Italian, Vietnamese.
Assignments :
– Lecture and reading notes to identify and construct a research object and a personal problematic.
– A Thematic File to prepare the corpus of the individual dissertation.

This seminar initiates the work leading up to the production of a thesis at the end of the Master’s cycle. During the semester, the aim is to help students :
– determine the field of study and nature of the dissertation they will develop
– gather useful “materials” by compiling a bibliography
– identify questions and pose a problematic through the production of a first dissertation model.

Continuous assessment: 50% (seminar participation) – final document assessment: 50%. Submission of a written progress report every week (or every two weeks, as a prerequisite for an exchange with the team’s teachers).

At the end of the semester, students hand in a document containing the work carried out during the semester: title, problematic, bibliography, reading notes, iconographic base, initial results of the work (e.g. interview report) and work plan for the following semester. A poster presentation will be organized in conjunction with other DU seminars.

Teaching team 2023-2024:
Pierre Chabard / Sophie Descat / Louis Destombes / Carlo Grispello / Marilena Kourniati

The intense debates that have accompanied the massive mobilization of architecture schools from February 2023 onwards have highlighted the urgency for architects of a set of intertwined issues (environmental, socio-cultural, geopolitical, techno-scientific) that definitively throw a spanner in our theoretical, pedagogical, disciplinary and professional certainties. Based on the premise that no return to the past is possible or desirable, we propose to make the “Critique and Histories of Architecture” seminar a collective and inclusive framework for prolonging reflection, deepening problematics and renewing knowledge, by mobilizing the tools of history; a discipline that Manfredo Tafuri already saw, in his time, as “a perpetual contestation of the present, (…) a threat too, if the present is to be understood as the future”.) a threat, if you like, to the tranquilizing myths that soothe the anxieties and doubts of architects 1″.

(1) Manfredo Tafuri, Théories et Histoire de l’Architecture, Paris: éditions S.A.D.G., 1976 (1968), p.307.

The life of the seminar alternates between several types of sessions: firstly, lectures that feed into the three seminar themes, based on the teachers’ research work; secondly, lectures by outside contributors on specific points and on-site visits, depending on the occasion and the themes covered; thirdly, regular follow-up sessions on dissertations
Nourished by optional introductory teaching on research methods, this first semester of the seminar should lead to the drafting of a detailed research project and bibliography. To this end, the work will focus on exploratory research, the construction of a problematic, the elaboration of a state of knowledge and the choice of a field.

The life of the seminar alternates between several types of sessions: firstly, lectures that feed into the three seminar themes, based on the teachers’ research work; secondly, lectures by external speakers on specific points; thirdly, visits in situ, depending on the occasion and the theme; fourthly, regular follow-up sessions on dissertations
Nourished by optional introductory teaching on research methods, this first seminar semester should lead to the drafting of a detailed research project and bibliography. To this end, the work will focus on exploratory research, the construction of a problematic, the elaboration of a state of knowledge and the choice of a field.

AMP seminar lectures since 2012:
– Valéry Didelon (10/30/2012)
– Léa-Catherine Szacka (15/01/2013)
– Hélène Jannière (4/6/2013)
– Catherine de Smet (12/17/2013)
– Julien Bastoen (1/04/2014)
– Hans Ibelings (04/11/2014)
– James Njoo (04/29/2014)
– Marie-Madeleine Ozdoba (6/5/2014)
– Eléonore Marantz (3/6/2014)
– Typhaine Moogin (2014/12/16)
– Adélie Collard (6/1/2015)
– Alberto Bologna (3/3/2015)
– Isabelle Doucet (10/3/2015)
– Mazen Haidar (7/4/2015)
– Véronique Boone (14/4/2015)
– Loïse Lenne (8/12/2015)
– Paul Bouet (05/17/2016)
– Hakima El Kaddioui (18/04/2017)
– Julie André-Garguilo (02/05/2017)
– Louis Destombes (14/11/2017)
– Martin Etienne and Mehdi Zannad (14/11/2017)
– Julien Correa (5/12/2017)
– Pauline Lefèbvre (4/12/2017)
– Barry Bergdoll (03/04/2018)
– Julie André Garguilo (05/29/2018)
– Romain David (30/10/2018)
– Lucien Steil (20/12/2018)
– Patrick Berger (17/1/2019)
– Valérie Nègre (12/03/2019)
– Hakima El Kaddioui (9/04/2019)
– Pierre Farret (21/05/2019)
– Edouard Ropars (15/10/2020)
– Marilena Kourniati (06/04/2021)
– Marc Bédarida, François Séguret, Jean-Paul Flamand (23/11/2021)
– Léa-Catherine Szacka (12/12/2021)
– Hakima El Kaddioui, Guy Pimienta, Xavier Wrona (11/01/2022)
– Bérénice Gaussuin (03/29/2022)
– Alison Gorel le Pennec (05/17/2022)
– Edouard Ropars (25/10/2022)

Main publications:
Pierre CAYE, Durer. Éléments pour une transformation du système productif, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2020.
Beatriz COLOMINA, et al (eds.), Radical Pedagogies, Cambridge (MA), MIT Press, 2022.
Philippe DESCOLA, Par-delà nature et culture, Paris, Gallimard, 2005.
Tim INGOLD, Faire: Anthropologie, Archéologie, Art et Architecture, Paris, Dehors, 2017 (1st ed. in English, Routledge, 2013).
Bruno LATOUR, Where to land? Comment s’orienter en politique, Paris, la Découverte, 2017
Jeremy TILL, Architecture Depends, Cambridge (MA), MIT Press, 2009.

For a more detailed bibliography, see the seminar blog:

Protégé : Bibliographie incrémentale

code: indicible

Little thought has been given to how architectural projects are produced and evaluated. Today, this questioning cannot do without examining the primary instrument of design: the brain. But the brain does not function in isolation, floating in an ether of ideas. It is embodied in a body and integrated into an environment. It reaches out to the outside world through mediating instruments. Traditional tools (paper, pencil, tee, square, compass, etc.) and digital tools (computer, screen, keyboard, mouse, etc.) support a wide range of supports and catalysts for project thinking: the oldest, such as sketches, geometrics, descriptions, vocabularies and physical models, but also the most modern, such as digital models, algorithmic processes, multi-agent systems, shape grammars and artificial intelligence.

It is this embodied and instrumented conception of the project that the seminar ‘Savoirs des Activités de Projet Instrumentées’ (formerly Design Activities and Instrumentation) proposes to explore with students over three semesters. The seminar’s research focus, which could be described as metacognitive, cuts across a number of themes: constructive thinking, tectonics, ecology, the digital, materials, perception, emotions, empathy… 

Continuous assessment and evaluation of required work.

Production of a poster presented at a defense organized with teachers and students from other seminars in the field of study.
Production of a progress report.

This seminar focuses on the architectures of collective life: from built heritage to territory, from urban fragment to public space. Based on historical and contemporary cases of varying scales, and on built and unbuilt projects, the aim is to make visible uses, spatial arrangements, types and transformations, with regard to issues of sharing, neighborliness and coexistence, which intrinsically link society and the environment.
Tools for territorial, typological, morphological and structural analysis, as well as a range of theoretical texts and documentary resources, are used to characterize these collective architectures as singular or serial objects. The production of original drawings is combined with reasoned reflection and investigation to produce a truly architectural research project.

– Registration: julien.joly@paris-lavillette.archi.fr // anne.portnoi@paris-lavillette.archi.fr // catherinedeschamps45@yahoo.fr

Attendance; contribution to discussions; reading sheets; validation of pre-dissertation stages 40% continuous assessment and 60% final report (pre-dissertation).

Angélil Marc and Malterre-Barthes Charlotte, 2022, Immigration et ségrégation spatiale. L’exemple de Marseille, Parenthèses.
BARTHES Roland, 2002, Comment vivre ensemble : simulations romanesques de quelques espaces quotidiens : notes de cours et de séminaires au Collège de France,1976-1977, Paris, Seuil.
BAXANDALL Michael 2000 Formes De L’intention: Sur L’explication Historique Des Tableaux. Nîmes: J. Chambon.
BOUCHERON Patrick, 2018, “Ecrire l’histoire des futurs du pass”, in, Boucheron and Hartog, L’Histoire à venir, Toulouse, Editions Anacharsis
Bourdon Valentin, 2021, Les occurrences du commun: vers de nouvelles homogénéités urbaines, Geneva, MētisPresses.
Brundtland Gro, 2017, Our Common Future, Macat Library.
BURGEL Guy, 2012. La Ville Contemporaine Après 1945: Histoire De L’europe Urbaine 6. Paris: Seuil.
CHARVADES Benjamin, DUFIEUX Philippe, MULLER François-Frédéric, 2017, “Les enjeux théoriques de la réhabilitation” Proceedings of the 3rd seminar of the Réseau Architecture Patrimoine et Création. Lyon: Presses architecturales de Lyon.
Chermayeff Serge, ALEXANDER Christopher, 1963, Community and Privacy: Toward a New Architecture of Humanism. 1. ed. Garden City N.Y: Doubleday.
Collective, 2021, Communities at Work: exhibition, Venice, French Pavilion of the 17th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, May 22 to November 21, 2021, Paris: Dominique Carré.
Cupers Kenny, 2016, “Mapping and Making Community in the Postwar European City”, Journal of Urban History, vol. 42, n° 6 : 1009-1028.
Cupers Kenny, 2018, La banlieue, un projet social, Editions Parenthèses.
Dardot Pierre, 2014, Commun: essai sur la révolution au XXIe siècle, Paris, la Découverte.
DUBY Georges. 1980-1985. Histoire De La France Urbaine. Paris: Seuil.
FREDET Jacques, 2018, Architecture: Mettre en forme et composer. Paris: Editions de la Villette.
FREDET Jacques, 2020. Types Courants De L’architecture Mineure Parisienne. Paris: Editions de la Villette.
GAUTHIEZ, Bernard, 2003 Espace urbain: vocabulaire et morphologie. Paris: Monum, Editions du patrimoine.
Glendinning Miles and Muthesius Stefan, 1994, Tower block: modern public housing in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, New Haven, Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art by Yale University Press.
GRAF Franz, 2014 Histoire matérielle du bâti et projet de sauvegarde devenir de l’architecture moderne et contemporaine. Lausanne: Presses polytechniques et universitaires romandes
GRAF Franz, DELEMONTEY Yvan, 2020, Histoire et Sauvegarde de l’architecture Industrialisée et Préfabriquée au XXe Siècle. Lausanne: EPFL Press.
GRAF Franz, MARINO Giulia, 2016, Les dispositifs du confort dans l’architecture du XXe Siècle : Connaissance et stratégies de sauvegarde. Lausanne: Presses Polytechniques et Universitaires Romandes.
Habraken N. J., 1999, Supports: An Alternative to Mass Housing, 2nd editionUrban International Press.
ifa e.V., Stuttgart, 2018, An atlas of commoning: places of collective production, Berlin, ARCH+ Verlag.
Jeudy Henri-Pierre, 2007, L’Absence d’intimité: Sociologie des choses intimes, Belval, Circé.
Leach Neil, 2003, “Belonging”, AA Files, no. 49: 76-82.
Lenel Emmanuelle, [n.d.], “Une architecture communautaire contemporaine : idéologie, spatialité et appropriations du modèle du cohabitat”, SociologieS.
Lewis Michael J., 2016, City of Refuge: separatists and utopian town planning, Princeton (N.J.), Princeton University Press.
LUSSAULT, Michel, LEVY Jacques, 2013, Dictionnaire de la géographie et de l’espace des sociétés. Paris: Belin
Magnaghi Alberto, 2003, Le projet local, Sprimont (Belgique), Mardaga.
MALVERTI, Xavier and PINON Pierre (dir.), 1997, La ville réguliére. Modele et tracés, Paris: Picard
MANGIN David and PANERAI Philippe,1999. Projet Urbain. Marseille: Parenthèses.
MAZZONI Cristiana. 2013, La Tendenza: Une Avant-Garde Italienne 1950-1980. Marseille: Éd. Parenthèses.
MORDILLAT Gérard and CLERC Christophe, 2022, “Le monde et sa propriété (4/4) – Posséder la Terre”, Arte documentary.
PANERAI Philippe, 2008. Paris Métropole: Formes et Échelles du Grand-Paris. Paris: Villette.
PANERAI Philippe, DEMORGON Marcelle and DEPAULE Jean-Charles 2018. Urban Analysis. [New edition 2018] ed. Marseille: Editions Parenthèses.
Ring Kristien, 2013, Selfmade City: Berlin : Stadtgestaltung und Wohnprojekte in Eigeninitiative = Self-initiated urban living and architectural interventions, 2. AuflageBerlin, Jovis.
ROULEAU Bernard, 1985. Villages Et Faubourgs De L’ancien Paris: Histoire D’un Espace Urbain. Paris: Éd. du Seuil.
Russell Bertrand, 2002, In Praise of Idleness, Paris, Allia.
Scanlon Kath and Arrigoitia Melissa Fernández, 2015, “Development of new cohousing: lessons from a London scheme for the over-50s”, Urban Research and Practice, vol. 8, no. 1: 106-121.
Schmid Susanne, 2019, A History of Collective Living: Models of Shared Living, De Gruyter.
STERN Robert FISHMAN A. M. David, TILOVE Jacob 2013. Paradise Planned: The Garden Suburb and the Modern City. New York: Monacelli Press.
Taricat Jean, 2013, Suburbia: a liberal utopia, Paris, Édition de la Villette.
Testart Alain, 2003, “Propriété et non-propriété de la terre: L’illusion de la propriété collective archaïque (1re partie)”, Études rurales, n° 165/166 : 209-242.
Tönnies Ferdinand, Mesure Sylvie, and Bond Niall, 2010, Communauté et société, Paris, Presses universitaires de France.
TOPALOV Christian. 2010. L’aventure Des Mots De La Ville. Paris: R. Laffont.
TSIOMIS Yannis, SECCHI Bernardo, 2008. Matières De Ville: Projet Urbain et enseignement. Paris: Éditions de la Villette.
Young Michael Dunlop and Willmott Peter, 2011, Family and kinship in East London, London, Routledge.
ZELLER Olivier and PINOL Jean-Luc. 2012. Histoire De L’europe Urbaine. 3 La Ville Moderne Xvie-Xviiie Siècle. [Paris: Éditions Points.

What to keep? What are the criteria for selection? What is the logic behind current regulations? How do we combine conservation, appropriation and invention today, and how have these notions and practices been combined in concrete terms at different periods? The proposed course aims to demystify this field and enable those interested to acquire the skills and knowledge to pursue a career in the field. It also aims to develop knowledge of changing objects and sites likely to be considered “heritage” in the future.

Assessment of knowledge is carried out by means of tutorials and the regular submission of dissertations.

Organized in the form of “courses/seminars”, teaching alternates between debate sessions based on critical readings of key texts, lectures by the teaching team or guest speakers, and site visits. Each session also includes a time for collective follow-up of the Memoirs.
In addition to the dissertation, students are required to complete a writing exercise (reading sheet), give oral presentations (participation in debates, presentation of work in progress) and submit a “pre-dissertation” at the end of the semester.

slideshow, bibliography and online documents

With an international dimension and an open vision of the notion of heritage, this seminar questions the policies and mechanisms of protection and conservation, as well as the logics of consumption or reuse of cultural heritage, whether tangible, intangible or dematerialized, protected or unprotected. It thus stands at the crossroads of the architectural, social, environmental, political and normative issues involved in heritage production. From this perspective, it raises the question of temporal reconfigurations, social productions and appropriations of built heritage, with a particular focus on the expertise, competence and legitimacy of heritage “makers”, with a particular interest in mediation, experimentation and heritage awareness-raising. This seminar aims to become a privileged framework for analyzing the spatial effects of financing mechanisms that complement ministerial policies (such as the Loto du patrimoine or participatory financing), with a particular focus on rural areas or areas in decline. These rural areas, which are often the focus of competitive tourism and revitalization initiatives, as well as cultural and natural landscapes, small and medium-sized towns and urban renewal districts, will all be at the heart of our research. Last but not least, this seminar will address the growing importance of innovation in heritage science, not only in terms of participatory and inclusive approaches, but also in terms of virtual reality, geolocation, social networks and so on.

The teaching team – made up mainly of teacher-researchers from the Espace Travail Laboratory of the UMR CNRS Lavue – and guests will present case studies from France and abroad: Italy, Romania, China, Japan, Nepal, the United States… 

Assessment is based on a number of intermediate exercises and regular monitoring of work on the dissertation. Attendance and participation are taken into account in grading. Validation is required for the pre-dissertation, the interim dissertation (poster and defense) and the final dissertation (poster and defense).

Reading exercises and critical analysis of texts suggested by teachers.

BENHAMOU F., Economie du patrimoine culturel, Paris, ed. La Découverte, 2012.
FLICHY P., Le Sacre de l’amateur, Sociologie des passions ordinaires à l’ère numérique, Seuil, coll. “La République des idées”, 2010.
FLON É., Les Mises en scène du patrimoine : Savoir, fiction et médiation, Paris, Hermès Sciences-Lavoisier, 2012.
GRAVARI-BARBAS M. (dir.), Atelier de réflexion prospective ” Nouveaux défis pour le patrimoine culturel “, état de l’art, consortium PA.TER.MONDI, Paris: EIREST, Université Paris 1, Agence nationale de la recherche, 2014a.
GRAVARI-BARBAS M. (dir.), Atelier de réflexion prospective ” Nouveaux défis pour le patrimoine culturel “, rapport final, synthèse des travaux du consortium PA.TER.MONDI, Paris: EIREST, Université Paris 1, Agence nationale de la recherche, 2014b.
GRAVARI-BARBAS M. (dir.), Habiter le patrimoine. Enjeux, approches, vécu, Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2005.
HEINICH N., La Fabrique du patrimoine. De la cathédrale à la petite cuillère, Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, coll. “Ethnologie de la France”, 2009a.
IOSA I., ” Ecueils du patrimoine affranchi du territoire à l’heure du numérique : limites d’une gestion managériale et dématérialisée de châteaux en ruine “, Territoire en Mouvement, 53-54/2002, https://journals.openedition.org/tem/9218
IOSA I., ” Le Patrimoine à l’encan “, Métropolitiques, le 13/09/2018, https://www.metropolitiques.eu/Le-patrimoine-a-l-encan.html
MERCKLE P., Sociologie des réseaux sociaux, La Découverte, coll. ” Sociologie “, 2011.
PINSON G., La Ville néolibérale, PUF, coll. “Sociologie et Sciences de l’éducation”, 2020.