# Notre Dame de Royan by Guillaume Gillet & Marc Hebrard

Notre Dame de Royan is a 1958 church in Royan (West part of France) which was designed by architects Guillaume Gillet & Marc Hebrard in association with engineers Bernard Lafaille, Rene Sarger & Ou Tseng after the destruction of the first church during WWII.

The two first photographs are from Guillaume Amat (see previous post)

# Two Connected Houses by Mark Manders

Two Connected Houses is Mark Manders' proposition for the Guggenheim's exhibition Contemplating the Void (see previous article). In fact, this artist proposes to link a little house in the the void of the Guggenheim, with another house on the other side of the street by a tunnel excavated from New York's ground. "It will take four days to construct the tunnel", he writes.

The whole narrative is to be seen on Roma Publication's website

# Abhominal by Jason Hopkins

Jason Hopkins develops a compelling digital art work entitled Abhominal that illustrates a beautiful hybridization of geometrical normative structures with a tumorous organic flesh. His "bodies" are as much striking to me that it obviously evokes the hyperactive use of uncontrolled topological surfaces in current architecture. Jason Hopkins proposes a much more interesting vision of not only a surface, but also its content, the flesh, which is not without recalling Marcos Cruz's interest (see his manifesto for boiteaoutils).

However, what I just wrote is only my interpretation as an architect and I wanted to have Jason's "version" of his own work which is the very short text that follows:

"I am fascinated by mankind’s pursuit of ‘perfection’. Through the instruments of science we strive to categorize, understand, rearrange and ultimately tame the natural world around us. My sketches are explorations of possible genetic futures where mankind has achieved this perfection, where science has ironed out the inadequacies of being human."

Biostructure 2

Human Reconfiguration VI

Human Reconfiguration IV

Human Reconfiguration X

Human Reconfiguration XIX

Olympian I

Human Reconfiguration XI

Human Reconfiguration XII
Human Figure Study III

# An Opening into Voids: (re)connecting Napoli and its Other by Will Laslett

An Opening into Voids: (re)connecting Napoli and its Other is a beautiful project by Will Laslett for Jeanne Sillett's University of Westminster's studio. As told in the text below the project dramatizes a network of architectural canyons linking Naples' multiple caves.
In this regard, it might be interesting to look at it in a dialogue with a project already published on boiteaoutils: Chen Xinyang's Underground City.

Here is the text written by Will Laslett:

An Opening into Voids: (re)connecting Napoli and its Other

This project is an exploration into the caverns of Naples. This vast network of caverns, which has formed through human inhabitation of the land over at least the last five millennia and which has come to extend beyond the perimeter of the city, is unique in its extent and diversity. The network of voids now underlies vast sections of the city, sometimes out scaling the built forms above and yet is largely abandoned, neglected or even forgotten. These are spaces of disorientation, wonder and curiosity, where time is frozen and the nature of positive and negative space is questioned. Through the anthropological creation of a punctured ground plane, upon which Naples is situated, ambiguities are created in notions of the natural and the artificial, the built and the found, as well as the very authenticity of the ground plane itself.

Here I aim to incorporate this hidden alternative network of spaces into the wider network of the inhabited city. Through the creation of a symbolic opening and point of convergence between these two planes, the project aims to allow these worlds to collide, and where in this collision, the city is drawn in, a point of orientation between these realms is created and an altered perception on the nature of the built fabric is allowed. This point of intersection thus aims, fundamentally, to serve as a means of re-comprehending the city, both for those who visit and those who inhabit.

# Nébuleuse by Guillaume Amat

Nébuleuse is a photographic work by Guillaume Amat investigating the strange territory of the French Atlantic coasts and its military ruins from World War II, bunkers. The atmosphere of the photographs helps to compose a foggy heterotopia where those bunkers appears as monolithic artifacts within an infinite sand landscape.

This work integrates perfectly the series of article written about bunkers on boiteaoutils and that can be read by following this link.

Here is the text related to the series (nb: the complete series has to be seen of Guillaume Amat's own website):

Nébuleuse
In April 2007, in a muffled silence, the sea disappeared, as if vanished, leaving behind only ghosts of stone.
These Blockhaus, remains of World War II, slowly digested by the tides turned out to be threatening places of refuge in the middle of an unexplored desert.
A haunting wind is sweeping along the coast and wrapping distant figures.
In the open sea, one could hear the muffled sound of a foghorn very much like the whispering rumbling of life.
People seem to get lost in a scenery both quiet and threatening where one gets stifled by the immensity of the landscape.

The project called "Nebuleuse" (Nebula) is part of a reflection on the question of World War II heritage, the French coast and its conversation.

In the form of a photographic proposition, I tried to show how the hand of man and the hand of Nature can mix or be in conflict.

# Todor & Petru by CRCR (Wizz Design)

Todor & Petru is a very short film created by CRCR, five students from the GOBELINS, l'école de l'image (applied art & digital media school in Paris) within the frame of an internship at Wizz Design in Paris. The results evoke a lot of things that have already been done, yet demonstrates an excellent articulation of technique and aesthetics.

The five students are Remi BASTIE, Nicolas DEHGHANI, Jonathan DJOB NKONDO, NIcolas PEGON et Jérémy PIRES

# Biblioteca Nacional de la Republica Argentina by Clorindo Testa, Francisco Bullrich & Alicia Cazzaniga

photograph by Baobee

I was recently writing about Jorge Luis Borges as director of the National Library of the Argentine Republic (see previous post); here is the current building that hosts the Biblioteca Nacional in Buenos Aires.
It was designed in 1961 by Clorindo Testa, Francisco Bullrich & Alicia Cazzaniga, yet only started to built in 1971 and eventually opened in...1992.

photograph by Fiddy James

photograph by Nikko1974

photograph by Calovi

photograph by Castronovot

# Subnature by David Gissen

Subnature is a pretty interesting book written by David Gissen that attempts to gather a body of architectural works that take their essence in the consideration of the non-romantic (at least not in the classical meaning of it) elements of nature whether the latter are atmospheric, material or living entities.
The best way to illustrate the content of this book is probably to insert its contents' page:

PART ONE (Atmospheres):
- Dankness
- Smoke
- Gas
- Exhaust

PART TWO (Matter):
- Dust
- Puddles
- Mud
- Debris

PART THREE (Life):
- Weeds
- Insects
- Pigeons
- Crowds

All those elements can be the motor of a narrative that ends up into an architectural project such as developed by R&Sie(n), Eyal Weizman, Philippe Rahm or Jorge Otero-Pailos. The interesting thing here, is that nature is considered, not anymore as the docile entity that capitalo-ecology want to "save", but rather as the component of all things, continuously evolving and liberated from any subjectivation.

In a very similar way, David Gissen recently published his edition of AD (the famous English periodic that offer the edition to a different person every two months) that he entitled Territory: Architecture Beyond Environment.