FESTIVAL OF LIVELY ARCHITECTURE

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

On the occasion of the 4th FESTIVAL OF LIVELY ARCHITECTURE in MONTPELLIER, the association Champ Libre launches a call for applications to realize 10 installations.

The Festival settles in the very heart of the city of Montpellier, it will thus take place in the Escutcheon and more specifically in the courtyards of private mansions. Therefore it will propose a journey to visitors, sort of an architecture discovery in the middle of the city.

This way the goal of the Festival in Montpellier is on one hand to open up to the inhabitants, during the festival these emblematic places and on the other hand – thanks to the interventions of teams or creators who will present a specific work in each and every place – to reveal an intimate relationship between contemporary architecture, installation and heritage.

Thematic Festival 2008: Short-lived Curiosities

Selection of the teams: Please return a data file before December 15th 2008 (with the postmark attesting the postage date).

The application file must content:
- A presentation of the team, and each members if it is not an individual application, with curriculum vitae of each member
- References of architecture realizations, installations, competitions… made in the past.
- An intention letter according to the Festival of Lively Architecture and to the thematic Short-lived Curiosities

Eligibility: the consultation is opened to young architects, landscape designers.

The applications must be sent by emails in PDF to the following address:  [email protected]

Please indicate the subject as following: « Application FAV 2009 Montpellier”, and please do not send files that would be too heavy.

A complete document with details about the thematic, constraints related to the conception of the intervention (nature of grounds, exposition, visitors, settlements…) will be sent to the selected teams.

Announcement of the selected teams: January 2009
Deadline for project submissions: February 16th 2009

The Festival will take place mid-June 2008.
Each team will have a grant of 1000,00 €, inclusive of tax for the realization of their projects.
All the questions should be emailed to Champ Libre association [email protected]
FAV website: http://favmontpellier.nerim.net

Lively Architectures

The “Festival of Lively Architecture” was not to offer a manifesto but rather the assertion of an evolution of the architectural practice which, integrating all the related fields into its culture, no longer hesitates to continue in its achievement. Lively Architecture is mutant and evolutionary by nature; they are always specific, torn off with the emergency of the present. Fed up with traditionally formal or aesthetic one, they nourish themselves with experimentation. Inevitably they have the sense of humour, as well as humility. While some would like to freeze architecture in the great mirror of History and Heritage, the Lively Architecture prefer the prerogative of use instead of royalties.

They are copyleft in their attitude and delight in any free and constructive re-use, Refusing the immutable during the festival, they question our daily environment. They aim at a large audience, they propose a sensory adventure and they offer a shifted glance. They want to develop and reveal.

Lively Architecture are object of desire, envy and they wish to offer sensory pleasure.

FESTIVAL OF LIVELY ARCHITECTURE 2009
4th Edition in Montpellier
Short-lived Curiosities

For this 4th edition of Festival of Lively Architecture in Montpellier, the locations chosen are in ad equation with the historic city. On of its treasures is the presence in the escutcheon of numerous private mansions. Today Montpellier counts more that seventy private mansions and as more courtyards. This way the goal of the Festival in Montpellier is on one hand to open up to the inhabitants, during the festival these emblematic places and on the other hand – thanks to the interventions of teams or creators who will present a specific work in each and every place – to reveal an intimate relationship between contemporary architecture, an installation and heritage.

The city, set of numerous emotions and feelings, offers us spaces where we fell fine, others that calm us. Some of them disappoint us, or oblige us to modify our relationship to time and space. And there are also spaces like the courtyards that instigate our curiosity. Historically, the courtyards, semi-public semi-private, have been allocated several functions, from place of representation, distribution reception, but today, they remain uninhabited. These spaces hide themselves behind heavy doors that question us, even though they remain discreet in the city. They delight us, when and only when we have the chance to have a glimpse of what the courtyard is like. We guess behind those heavy doors we’ll find a garden, a majestic staircase, an ancient pavement… Just a glance at these spaces and our relationship to the city is changed, and our imagination is invited to complete the few architectural detail we saw by surprise. The courtyards become real curiosities.

The Festival offers to play with this poetic and disconcerting nuance that consists in being both inside and outside. Spaces become confused. Let us find during the festival the pleasure to go all over the city to stroll from surprise to surprise. Let us find and reveal with games of spaces, games of colours and games of matters… the qualities of these courtyards and their particularities. Let us insufflate them life, thanks to the sensory pleasure of a place, thanks to the imaginary of an inhabited city and not only by crossing it.

Contemporary architecture will be revealed with ephemeral games and will awaken sleepy places. So inside or outside, let us simple look for the pleasure of space, of architecture and of the city.