1KM
2012 - ongoing, Villeneuve la Garenne, Île de France.
By numbers:
– 1 linear km long
| 10 floors
6000 people hosted
This sequence is part of a research on how to use photography in urban investigation.
In Ilê-de-France today the debate on the Grand Paris, that means opening metropolitan centers’ boundaries towards the suburbs is an issue of prime importance and is under discussion from years. In this context I’ve been attracted by the re-modelage¹ of the grand ensemble² La Caravelle at Villeneuve-la-Garenne (northern suburbs of Paris).
La Caravelle is an housing complex consisting of one-kilometer-long plan built during “The Glorious Thirty” as a refuge for the myriad of people who was, at that time, looking for a place to live in France. In that period this building was considered an admirable plastic work designed by Jean Dubuisson.
At the beginning of the XXI century, in contrast with the ideals that led to this complex’s construction, something went wrong and the building has become an enclave averse to rest of the city among the five or six Grand Paris’ districts most criminogenic in France.
My work focuses on the transformations of this place after the re-modelage made by Atelier Castro in 2003. I’ve been attracted by the reorganization of urban structures and, widely, the désenclavement³ – the architects through punctual demolitions constructed a new viability restoring the complex’s connection with the city.
¹ REHABILITATION AND REDEVELOPMENT
² HOUSING COMPLEX
³ TO GET OUT FROM AN ENCLAVE, SO GET OUT FROM THE SITUATION OF ENCLAVE AVERSE TO REST OF THE CITY
