# L'enjeu Capital / Large scale metropolis in Pompidou Centre

Eventually I write this article about the big conference L'Enjeu Capital which was held the two first days of October in the Pompidou Centre. This event was organized by Frederic Migayrou and was gathering big names of worldwide architecture (France seems to be better to ask for people to speak than to build...).
This conference was commissioned by Frederic Mitterand, the French Cultural Minister for feeding the national reflection around the Greater Paris.

What is incredibly stupid is that almost all lectures are in English, but they superimposed a French audio translation on it, therefore you have to try to distinguish the original voice behind that...or write to the Pompidou Centre and express your anger...

I did not listen to all the lectures but what I can say about the one I did is:
- Big guys like Eisenman, Branzi or Mayne are equal to what they usually are...meaning interesting but completely un-emotional.
- James Wines is surprisingly un-provokative when he gives a very politically correct speech about sustainability
- Rem Koolhaas is changing interest. After promoting ambiguous ideological situations of blossomy economies such as China or the Emirates, he now feel the wind changing and go sheltering in...small villages of Switzerland. Seriously I don't know if it is a joke but this lecture is worth it just for that!
- The AADRL crew and Makoto Watanabe do not bring really new ideas but the work is still interesting to look at...
- Brendan McFarlane is superbly ridiculous. Take every trends of a period (light computation, sustainability, a dash of philosophy, glossy renderings ), mix it all together and you basically get McFarlane's discourse. What a pity since I still believe that Mr. McFarlane and Mrs Jakob could potentially do far better than what they are currently doing...
- Hernan Diaz Alonzo's messy lecture is however delightful to explore. Actually this lecture helped me to understand what he was really trying to do in his practice and with his teaching, which I did not get until then ! If you have to see only one, it might be this one. Especially for the metaphor with the Coyote and the Road Runner at the very end.

Anyway, that is only a part of all the lectures. Some others may probably be interesting (Galofaro, Yeang, Tschumi etc.) so the best is too spend a bit of time on it...