In France, Impasse des Lilas is a typical name for a suburban cul-de-sac. There are 841 Impasses des Lilas in France, and several thousand more also named after flowers (lilas means lilac). Despite their name, on such streets there are no lilac trees, but instead a uniform amalgam of unexceptional domestic lives, buildings and landscapes. This exhibition makes these suburban cul-de-sacs into a theoretical standpoint from which today’s architecture can be viewed.
Designed as a narrative that is both realistic and forward-looking, the exhibition Impasse des Lilas brings together about a hundred objects sourced from the production and research carried out by the architecture agency MBL, artists and guest architects, as well as a selection of everyday objects. Divided into six chapters, the exhibition begins with an exploration of the Impasse des Lilas as something that is neither urban nor rural, of the urban forms and landscape features that characterise it, and of the catastrophic imagery associated with it. Based on these observations, it formulates the possibility of an approach that sees architecture as an investigative practice able to produce “formless” buildings that are both eclectic and unexpected.
The work of MBL will be presented alongside works of Etel Adnan, Christopher Alexander, Andreas Angelidakis, Berger-Berger, BIC, François Blanciak, Bombyx Mama, Simon Boudvin, Andrea Branzi, Robert Breer, Abbé Henri Breuil, Édouard Cabay, Roger Caillois, Thomas Clerc, Mahé Cordier Jouanne, Maxime Delvaux, Estelle Deschamps, Dewez, Documents, Nicolas Dorval-Bory, Julien Dossena / Paco Rabanne, DPA Dominique Perrault, Bernard Dubois, E.A.T., ensamble studio, Annie Ernaux, Eurogroupe, European Space Agency, EZCT, Forensic Architecture, Camille Fréchou, Elsa Garmire, Géocorail, Daniel Grataloup, GTE 2017 (Xavier Albert, Corentin Baudry, Khaled Amine Bennoud, Océane Bonnotte, Anaëlle Bouffard, Stella Capisciolti, Manon Delhomme, Nathan François, Clara Guérin, Natacha Issot, Stéfane Lopes, Thibault Martinez, Flavie Mathie- Claverie, Océane Mayer, Marianne Pommier), Lawrence Halprin, Hiroshi Hara, D.G. Huquier, Arata Isozaki, Charles Jencks, Philip Johnson, Kaiserin, Wajiro Kon, Anne Lacaton et Jean-Philippe Vassal, Bertrand Lamarche, La Ville Rayée (David Apheceix, Benjamin Lafore, Sébastien Martinez-Barat), Lucas LaRochelle, Georges-Louis Le Rouge, Édouard Levé, Sarah Lévy, Thomas Lévy-Lasne, Cédric Libert, Soshi Matsunobe, Didier Marcel, McDonald’s, Mathieu Mercier, Thierry Metz, Gustav Metzger, Timothy Morton, Muoto, Ryuji Nakamura, PEREZ, Gianni Pettena, Matthieu Peyroulet, Plan Libre, Joanne Pouzenc, P.R.B., Franco Purini & Laura Thermes, François-Nicolas-Henri Racine de Monville, Philippe Rahm, Jean-Pierre Raynaud, Thomas Raynaud, Renault Classic, Hubert Robert, Damien Roger, Stéphane Ruchaud, Richard Sapper, Denise Scott Brown, Secchi, Nicolas Simon, SITE (James Wines), Emilio Terry, Stanley Tigerman, Aldéric Trével, Hachij Toshihito, Bernard Tschumi, Max Turnheim, Unifi Design Center, Béatrice Utrilla, Giesbert van Laar, Pierre Vanni, Venturi Scott Brown Architects, Wilhem Wagenfield, Loïs Weinberger, Judith Wielander, James Wong, Kazumasa Yamashita.