A private higher education establishment, founded in 1865, the École Spéciale is the only private architecture school in France, recognised as being of public utility since 1870. With more than 30% overseas students, the École Spéciale is also distinguished by its international recruitment of teaching staff, the conferences it initiates, and the projects it supports with partners on five continents.
Through these exchanges, the projects developed in Mongolia, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Haiti and South Africa, and the opening of its courses internationally, the École Spéciale wants its architects, town planners and future researchers to discover and question an exhausted planet, an “urbanised” planet trapped between present and past and for which we want them to offer innovative responses.
For this third biennial exhibition, we are continuing our consideration of the photography of studies and the photography of architecture students. We present “Photographic notes” following study trips; series of photographs on urban locations.
The notebooks from study trips by 19th century painters and architects are sometimes enhanced by photographs. Today, with the new digital tools and in this world which is defined by its representation, photography is multiplied and omnipresent.
We want to highlight a new, fresh view on the aesthetic weight of the standard travel photo, a view in terms of the collection, of the documentary image, the repertoire of forms, traces, little nothings that reveal a question. These images, collected without the intention of creating a work then feed the consideration of the complexity and rapid changes in the contemporary city, a necessary consideration on people, space and the city.
