Anne Lacaton & Jean-Philippe Vassal
February 22 - May 10, 1998

Each year, the MAGASIN invites young architects to present a work based on the building itself, in the « RUE » (Street), a central, 65 ft high, glass-roofed area of 10,000 sq ft, where the original structure built in 1900 by the Eiffel Workshops is still visible. This year, this experience is again presented with Anne Lacaton & Jean-Philippe Vassal.

« Architecture is, first of all, meant to be lived, used, filled by actions and events, whose quality, nature and frequency determine its status and features.
We are influenced by the implications of nature and context on architecture especially as it happens in Africa. For the project at MAGASIN we want to express the peculiar relationship between outdoor and indoor, the concrete and the virtual, which are determining to the spatial composition, through an utilitarian and optimized occupation of the space. »

Anne Lacaton & Jean-Philippe Vassal

Anne Lacaton (born in 1955), Jean-Philippe Vassal (born in 1954) both live in Bordeaux.
After graduating from the Bordeaux School of Architecture in 1980, they spent several years at Niamey, in Niger.
Earliest work : a hut built on a dune on the outskirts of the city. In 1987, they set up an agency in Bordeaux, and worked on competitions (Japan House in Paris in 1990, a project which received a special distinction, the Guadeloupe Lending Library and Twinned Ports Cultural Centre in Osaka in 1991,and more recently, the Compiègne School of Architecture and the French Lycée in Frankfurt in 1997). Their completed projects include, in particular, the Latapie House at Floriac in 1993, and the Art and Human Sciences Building at the Pierre Mendès-France University in Grenoble in 1995.
Jean-Philippe Vassal teaches at the Bordeaux School of Architecture, and both are guest teachers at the Bordeaux School of Fine Art.

For this exhibition the MAGASIN has asked all Cultural Centers and French Institutes abroad to contact the largest audience possible and to inform them about the project.
During the 6 months of the exhibition people are invited to take part by sending a postcard and/or a picture of their country.
All documents will be on view in each of the 30 « huts » placed in the MAGASIN Street.
This mailed material constitutes a collection of points of views and possibilities of exchange.
Represented countries : Portugal, Iceland, Bulgaria, Russia, Moldavia, Uzbekistan, Jordan, Yemen, Japan, India, Nepal, Indonesia, Morocco, Libya, Niger, Egypt, Somalia, Cape - Verde Islands, Madagascar, Zambia, Namibia, Benin, the United States, Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil, Chile, Fiji Islands, Australia, Papua New Guinea.

Technical details of the project
30 huts in corrugated polycarbonate- 3.5 meters in diameter - 1.70 meter high - 60 chairs.