Architects have always questioned what the cities of the future will look like. In the 1960s and 70s, one of the most prominent advocates of this field of "futurology" within architecture was historian and critic Michel Ragon. In an upcoming exhibition entitled City As A Vision, the FRAC Centre pays tribute to Ragon by presenting both historical and prospective urban concepts by architects throughout the last fifty years.
The exhibition includes works by Yona Friedman, one of the first to examine issues of urban planning at a global scale, and one of many people who influenced the futurologist movement of the 1960s. His research included prospective urban forms that would encourage a “free and continuous circulation of people and information.” These theories gave rise to subsequent urban visions, including Superstudio’s Continuous Monument series, which envisioned monuments that would impose a rational order on the natural environment. Viewed alongside later drawings, scale models and photomontages, the exhibition documents how architects have considered new urban landscapes, from the optimism of the “Pop years” to the looming visions of megastructures in the late 1960s.
Following these historical projects taken from the FRAC Centre’s own collection, the exhibition presents contemporary schemes by NLÉ, Foster + Partners, Sou Fujimoto Architects, and many others. Seen alongside historical works, we see the ways in which many of the same issues have been re-imagined for a different era. According to the FRAC Centre, “Globalised urban environment has now become reality, emerging at the crossroads between what is built and connected, what is wild and controlled.” The exhibition prompts us to ask how architects will respond to changes in contemporary notions of the city and its relationship to various scales.
Title
City As A Vision: Tribute to Michel RagonWebsite
Organizers
Marie-Ange Brayer, Emmanuelle Chiapponne-Piriou, Aurélien VernantFrom
September 19, 2014 12:00 AMUntil
February 22, 2015 12:00 AMVenue
Frac CentreAddress
88 Rue du Colombier, 37700 Saint-Pierre-des-Corps, France
