Cycle "Living in the city and its transitions" #2: Gricha Bourbouze & Cécile Graindorge

In 2026, the Quartus Endowment for Architecture continues its lecture series entitled “Living in the city and its transitions”.

The next meeting in this second season will feature architects Gricha Bourbouze & Cécile Graindorge:

The pleasure of constraint

“Since the 18th century, with the appearance of the first apartment blocks, the questions raised by this very special type of architecture have all been perceptible: comfort, distribution and flexibility, expression or concealment of construction methods, regularity and urban order. And while the ways in which architectural projects are represented have diversified considerably, the tools used to control their progress remain unchanged: The plan, the section, the façade. In contrast to a three-dimensional, coherent and indissociable design, the strength of this trio lies in its possible disjunction. Each of its parts has a distinct objective, and their reconciliation is the time of the project and its construction. Conceiving a project in superimposed layers means accepting the negotiation of opposing forces, resisting the desire for radicalism inherited from the avant-gardes, and asserting that the design of collective housing is as much about the pleasure offered to its first inhabitants as it is about the long time it takes to build a city. Accepting this complexity and the contradictions that accompany it, nourishing the project with this incessant dilemma between the intimate and the large urban dimension, means, in the words of Robert Venturi, seeking in “difficult unity” the keys to enriching our architectural practice.
Through the presentation of some recent projects, this conference will provide an opportunity to explain the complex layering of these issues, which is renewed with each new project.”

Admission free, subject to availability.
Online registration (registration does not guarantee access).