LA VILLE POUR PENSER DEMAIN - Cité des Métiers 2022
La ville pour penser demain ("The City to Imagine the Future") questions not only the concept of the "city" as a place for living, but also as a playground and a realm of experimentation, much akin to the writings of Georges Perec. For the Cité des Métiers 2022 event, the Department of Interior Architecture of HEAD – Genève designed the stage for the guest of honor: HES-SO – Genève. This event welcomed nearly 100,000 visitors who, throughout the span of a week, strolled through and experienced a city composed of the 6 HES-SO universities.
The scenography of the Cité des Métiers imagined the contemporary city as an active and mobile urban environment, wherein the pooling and sharing of resources and ideas were seamlessly facilitated by adaptable spaces. This vision materialized in the form of a 120-meter-long table. Similar to a networked city, the table functioned as a dynamic element in space that engendered collective and individual experiences, akin to a form of interior urban planning. This inclusive space encouraged people to converge, inciting unexpected encounters and shared forms of creativity.
Integrated into the structural continuity of the table, lighting sculpted the space and delineated the characteristics of its different zones, contributing to the distinctive ambiance of the urban scenario. Integral to the overall structure, it directed attention towards specific focal points – spots for solitude and congregation alike. Reflections, shadows, and lights contributed to the character of this interior city, whose blurred boundaries mirrored the dynamics of contemporaneity, forging a potential, uninterrupted future.
