Journal articles on the topic 'Architectures Jean Nouvel'

The article examines a group of exhibitions that took place in the late seventies and early eighties and are useful for grasping what was at stake regarding the debates on the tensions between modernist and post-modernist architecture. Among the exhibitions that are examined are Europa-America: Architettura urbana, alternative suburbane, curated by Vittorio Gregotti for the Biennale di Venezia in 1976; La Presenza del passato, curated by Paolo Portoghesi for the Biennale di Venezia in 1980; the French version of La presenza del passato—Présence de l’histoire, l’après modernisme—held in the framework of the Festival d’Automne de Paris in 1981; Architectures en France: Modernité/post-modernité, curated by Chantal Béret and held at the Institut Français d’Architecture (18 November 1981–6 February 1982); La modernité, un projet inachevé: 40 architectures, curated by Paul Chemetov and Jean-Claude Garcias for the Festival d’Automne de Paris in 1982; La modernité ou l’esprit du temps, curated by Jean Nouvel, Patrice Goulet, and François Barré and held at the Centre Pompidou in 1982; and Nouveaux plaisirs d’architecture, curated by Jean Dethier for the Centre Pompidou in 1985, among other exhibitions. Analysing certain important texts published in the catalogues of the aforementioned exhibitions, the debates that accompanied the exhibitions and an ensemble of articles in French architectural magazines such as L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui and the Techniques & Architecture, the article aims to present the questions that were at the centre of the debates regarding the opposition or osmosis between the modernist and postmodernist ideals. Some figures, such as Jean Nouvel, were more in favour of the cross-fertilisation between modernity and postmodernity, while others, such as Paul Chemetov, believed that architects should rediscover modernity in order to enhance the civic dimension of architecture. Following Pierre Bourdieu’s approach, the article argues that the tension between the ways in which each of these exhibitions treats the role of the image within architectural design and the role of architecture for the construction of a vision regarding progress is the expression of two divergent positions in social space.

The pop-up architecture (or landscape architecture) becomes popular nowadays. Some highlights include annual architecture program such as the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion at Hyde Park, London; MPavilion in Melbourne; MoMA PS1 and Heart Sculpture in New York. Many of these pop-up architectural works have been designed by world renowned architects, such as Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Hezorg and de Meuron, Jean Nouvel, Toyo Ito, SANAA, Shigeru Ban, BIG, etc. And many of these designs reflect innovative thinking that changes the professional world of architectural design. But above all, these pop-up architectures were created in responsive manner to the urban community and the community controversially has good response to this type of architecture. In the other words, pop-up architecture is the way the architects touch the heartbeat of the cities, make them livable for all. Ho Chi Minh City has its own types of pop-up landscape architecture, whereas this paper intends to explore in two case studies: Nguyen Hue Floral Boulevard and Nguyen Van Binh Book Street. Nguyen Hue Floral Street is celebrating now its twelfth birthday in the city. Nguyen Van Binh Book Street has just passed its first anniversary in 2017. Both cases live its own story behind the scene about how livable a city could be through place-making by architecture and landscape design. Throughout these cases, we would like to find out how this type of pop-up landscape architecture being realized and become popular in Ho Chi Minh City, and how it is devoted to a livable city for all.

This paper examines the contemporary conceptual, perceptive and aesthetic potential of architecture to transform into landscape by means of materialization. Contrary to the former, modernistic principles of transparency, which eliminated the wall between the internal and external space on a literal, visual level, contemporary social and visual context create the prerequisites for establishing a new, ambivalent treatment of (de)materialization of the border between architecture and the landscape. Such transformation was interpreted in the paper as a consequence of the general change related to determination of architectural form, as well as change in the sphere of theory of perception. The ambivalent relation on the line subject-architecture-landscape relies in the paper on the phenomenology of perception of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Juhani Pallasmaa, whereas the architectural actualization of the given concept was analysed on the example of two different authors? views - Kengo Kuma and Jean Nouvel. The emphasis on architectural experience, rather than on the architectural image, places the material in the domain of the main framework of this concept, whether based on its tactile (Kuma) or imaginary value (Nouvel). Finally, in order to make architectural materiality a part of the natural environment, both design methods paradoxically shift the materials from their natural context (truth to materials), whereby, consequently, except for materiality, the perceptive experience of the place itself is relativized.

While globalizing trends stimulate the creation of entirely new regions, established regional and local identities remain. Architectural historians, among others, explore the ways in which regionalism has been — and continues to be — defined and redefined. Current issues in this debate include what regional architectural traditions might be; whether regions can be defined by architecture; and how regional traditions of architecture have been defined and interpreted by artists, authors and scholars. Nineteenth-century Belgian architecture is particularly relevant in this context. The formation of Belgian Art Nouveau’s style and identity have both been the object of numerous studies, but while Art Nouveau is probably the best-known creation of Belgian nineteenth-century architecture, it is hardly the only one, nor indeed the only interesting one. One of the sources identified for Belgian Art Nouveau has been the milieu of the so-called Flemish Renaissance Revival, which produced such architectural gems as Emile Janlet’s (1839–1919) Belgian pavilion at the World Exhibition in Paris (1878) and Jean Winders’ (1849–1936) own house and studio (1882–83) in Antwerp (Fig. 1).

In this paper the authors are focusing on Jean Nouvel, a significant member of the French architect society. The aim of this research was to analyse the most remarkable elements of the architect’s life’s work: what kind of notable results he created, what ideas did he apply, etc. The authors tried to make a comparison between the design ways of architecture and mechanical engineering.

This article comparatively discusses the 14th International Architecture Biennale of Venice, directed by Rem Koolhaas, and the pilot exhibit and architectural design of Louvre Abu Dhabi undertaken by Jean Nouvel, in the context of recent big art events and world museums. Curatorial, historiographical, and installation strategies in these venues are differentiated in order to think through the question of displaying a global history of architecture. I make a distinction between the curatorial practices carried out in the Fundamentals and Absorbing Modernity sections of Venice's Central and National Pavilions as curator-as-author and curators-as-chorus, which I map onto recent historiographical and museum design practices, including the Louvre Abu Dhabi, to discuss the geopolitical implications of its installation strategies. I also argue that six methodological perspectives for displaying architectural history emerge from the curator-chorus of Absorbing Modernity, which can be identified as survey, nationalist history, case study, thematic history, archive metaphor, and deferment, all of which contribute to and raise questions about the ongoing project towards a global architectural history. After suggesting a difference between “world” and “global” history of architecture, I call for a more geopolitically conscious and cosmopolitan global history of architecture, by exposing the intactive bonds between the history of modernism and of colonization, as well as the continuing legacy of geopolitical and economic inequalities that operate in such venues.

AbstractFirst published in Paris in 1706, the ›Nouveau Traité de toute l’architecture ou l’art de Bastir‹ by Jean-Louis de Cordemoy marked a provocatively unprecedented point of view in the panorama of 18th century architectural theories. Through a critical revision of the excesses of the Baroque, which was considered the last rhetorical public manifestation of the Ancien Régime, and in the name of a logical renewal of design, the work immediately became the focus of a broad cultural debate, which continued until 1713 in a polemic with Amédée François Frézier. Revolutionary in its challenge to the Vitruvian orthodoxy, the Nouveau Traité developed the search for a Greek-Gothic architectural ideal, which, in a comparison between classical and modern, was realized in the querelle des Anciens et des Modernes and developed in France in the effort to define a ›national‹ architectural style. As precursor and inspiration for the aesthetics of Marc-Antoine Laugier, Cordemoy subjected adornment to the laws of bienséance and was a harbinger of the modern functionalist language – the principles of simplification of surfaces, a rigorous volumetric study that anticipated what in later decades would result in stereometric purity of Enlightenment experiments.

This article presents a perception of architecture in the context of an art. Juxtaposing the terms “architecture” and “art,” explaining them and presenting their mutual correlations contributes to deeper comprehension of the subject issue. Thanks to such an operation, the author of this article proves that, in spite of immense discrepancies of opinions published in the Internet, the typically technical discipline of science can also enchant us with its esthetic values. Although a major part of edifices situated in our environment are only hollow and soulless projections, there are still numerous places in the world that can be distinguished only thanks to outstanding premises, namely Sydney Opera. The article provides also a deep insight into various theses proving that both architects and artists look for an inspiration in the surrounding world, especially in the nature itself. In order to corroborate the aforementioned statements, the author of this paper mentions works of such architects as Jean Nouvel, Mies van der Rohe and Diller + Scofidio. However, there are still some designers who claim that architecture cannot be combined with art, since these two disciplines are completely different and have nothing in common with each other.

Light and architecture have a very strong relationship. Light is essential in the creation of attractive and successful buildings, but it may also show flaws. During the day, light glows along the building's façade, giving it a new appearance. From ancient temple and church builders to today's notable architects such as Tadao Ando, Jean Nouvel, and Louis I. Kahn, architects have always used this aspect. Light can also be employed to create an impact on architecture, as shown in the Empire State Building's various lighting usage. Artificial light is particularly significant in architectural displays, and light is very important in the construction of home buildings at night. This study uses qualitative methods with a descriptive-comparative approach to night lighting settings in outdoor spaces, applying Lumion 11, Enscape 3.4, and Twinmotion Edu 2022 rendering software. Models imported from SketchUp's 3D Warehouse are provided spotlight lighting at the same point in each application, as well as Omni lights to support lighting at night. Based on the results of the analysis of the use of Lumion 11, Enscape 3.4, and Twinmotion Edu 2022 rendering software, it is possible to conclude that Lumion 11 and Twinmotion Edu 2022 provide a very photorealistic outdoor space rendering experience at night, with each software platform offering good lighting features.

Résumé La zléa n’est pas qu’un simple accord de libre-échange ; il s’agit plutôt du canevas d’une nouvelle architecture régionale incorporant libre-échange et démocratie afin de rehausser le niveau de sécurité au sein de la région. La principale considération du Canada en ce qui concerne cette nouvelle architecture régionale est la création d’une collectivité ordonnée sur le plan politique et économique. Nous avançons ici que, pour le Canada, l’objectif de la zléa est de contribuer à la création d’une communauté des Amériques, que le premier ministre Jean Chrétien a appelé « una gran familia ».

Parmi les nombreux aspects que prit la mode du bas-relief à l'antique à Paris au milieu du XVIIe siècle, la pratique des architectes d'en incruster, sous forme de tables, dans leurs élévations se signale par sa nouveauté dans le contexte français. L'identification d'un dessin de Jacques Lemercier proposant d'intégrer des copies d'antiques romains à la façade du Louvre permet de lier cette formule nouvelle à la naissance d'un goût «attique» à la fin du règne de Louis XIII. Dans les décennies suivantes, le motif ornemental connut une fortune certaine dans l'architecture privée parisienne, en particulier grâce à l'influence de Louis Le Vau. Utilisé dans les projets d'achèvement du Louvre sous la surintendance de Jean-Baptiste Colbert, il faisait finalement partie intégrante du vocabulaire architectural français, mais participait dès lors d'un regard nouveau sur l'art antique.

La décision de publier, dans ce numéro spécial de la revue LC. Revue de recherches sur Le Corbusier consacré à Vers une architecture, une version française de la monumentale introduction en anglais que Jean-Louis Cohen a donnée à la nouvelle traduction en américain de Vers une architecture, parue en 2007, a été prise avec lui en juillet 2023. Sa mort tragique le 8 août l’a empêché, à quelques jours près, de relire ce texte inédit en français, dont il n’avait conservé qu’une esquisse en français ; en accord avec lui, seules quelques modifications mineures et mises à jour, rendues nécessaires après les quinze années qui se sont écoulées depuis sa parution, ont été apportées. Nous publions ce texte en hommage au grand historien de l’architecture moderne qui a tant œuvré pour la connaissance de Le Corbusier. La revue LC publiera la seconde partie de cette introduction dans son prochain numéro, accompagnée d’une bibliographie aussi exhaustive que possible de ses articles sur Le Corbusier. Guillemette Morel Journel

The architectural and structural analysis of selected high-rise buildings in Japan is presented in this paper. Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya have the largest share in development of high-rise buildings. Those cities are very densely populated and moreover they are located in one of the most active seismic zones. The combination of these factors has resulted in the creation of sophisticated designs and innovative engineering solutions, especially in the field of design and construction of high-rise buildings. The foreign architectural studios (Jean Nouvel, Kohn Pedesen Associates, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill) which specialize in the designing of skyscrapers, played a major role in the development of technological ideas and architectural forms for such extraordinary engineering structures. Among the projects completed by them, there are examples of high-rise buildings that set precedents for future development. An essential aspect which influences the design of high-rise buildings is the necessity to take into consideration their dynamic reaction to earthquakes and counteracting wind vortices. The need to control motions of these buildings, induced by the force coming from earthquakes and wind, led to the development of various methods and devices for dissipating energy during such phenomena. Currently, Japan is a global leader in seismic technologies which safeguard seismic influence on high-rise structures. Due to these achievements the most modern skyscrapers in Japan are able to withstand earthquakes with a magnitude of over seven degrees at the Richter scale. Applied damping devices applied are of a passive type, which do not require additional power supply or active type which need the input of extra energy. In recent years also hybrid dampers were used, with an additional active element to improve the efficiency of passive damping.

This article is dedicated to examination of art synthesis as a phenomenon that extended to various spheres of culture and art of the XIX–XX centuries. This period marks the emergence of a different visual language and new forms of perception of artistic expression. Analysis is conducted on the  forms of implementation of the idea Gesamtkunstwerk, and their development throughout the XX century: mythologization as a peculiar method of thinking, strive to go beyond the purely artistic imagery, subjectification of the perception of time and space, creation of the organized aesthetic environment, aesthetic dimension of humanism, synthetism of mentality and universalism of the artist. Special attention is given to the historical-cultural context, from the views of the Jena Romantics and musical theory of R. Wagner to the works of the masters of Art Nouveau, avant-garde and innovators of the theatrical scenery. The author also reviews the advent of the new forms of artistic expression. The analysis of the key trends allows determining the broad sense of the idea of art synthesis for the culture: philosophy, poetry, architecture, visual arts, design, and performance. The novelty of this study consists in description of the idea of art synthesis as one of the key meaning-forming factors in the European culture of the XIX–XX centuries. The article examines the problem of performativity of modern art as the logical continuation of the evolution of forms of artistic expression. Modern theatrical and performative practices (“live” exhibitory spaces, “museum of senses”, “theater of plentitude”, exploratory theater, promenade theater, and other) can be viewed as the reconceived version of the idea of art synthesis that originated in the culture of German Romanticism.

Promoteurs de l’imagination contre le réel, les surréalistes fantasment une demeure qui, étant une figure de la poésie, ne peut pas exister dans le monde réel. Par leurs regards, ils offrent pourtant un horizon inverse à celui du modernisme, relevant d’une approche à la fois onirique et organique de l’architecture. Ils enrichissent ainsi la pensée architecturale de l’époque par le recours au mythe, au sacré, à l’irrationnel, au grotesque, au spontané. Ils travaillent d’ailleurs à établir une contre-tradition architecturale qui fera sortir de l’ombre des antécédents bannis par la rhétorique fonctionnaliste, ainsi que l’œuvre d’autodidactes ayant décoré leur espace de vie. Le délire rocailleux de Cheval et les formulations organiques de l’Art Nouveau auront une place centrale dans cette contre-histoire qui réhabilite l’ornement et donne une impulsion au mouvement de l’architecture-sculpture, influençant l’œuvre de créateurs atypiques comme Etienne-Martin, Asger Jorn, Jean Tinguely, Niki de Saint-Phalle ou encore Jean-Luc Johannet.

What defines an interior space? Is a traditional threshold the only building element considered as a clear component demarcating interiority from the outside environment? Could light or water be just as clear? How can scale challenge the identification of an internal space? Is a living space more identifiable as an interior volume? What about an internal courtyard for a family house outlining the beginning of a nation or the opposite extreme in the time-space continuum, a 24,000 square meters domed roof over a series of intimate spaces establishing a nation’s cultural intention internationally? Can a central space act as a gravitational point to other space fragments and elements? Can the ephemerality of the space bind it together in a unique, memorable encounter?We set ourselves to answer these questions using different phenomenological responses methods including digital video, photography, drawings, and architectural observations. All depict different layered trajectories through the segments of the architectural strata that compose a cultural enclosure, such as Jean Nouvel’s Louvre Abu Dhabi. As we transverses through space and time, we use regional typologies to create a timeline spectrum connecting regional context, culture and architecture, attempting to emphasise the interiority qualities of the space under the dome.

Despite the iconic nature of the Manhattan skyline, there are only four places the public can see it from and those are the Empire State Building, the Rockefeller Center, ONE World Trade Center and the recently opened EDGE at Hudson Yards. All other elevated views are a private privilege, only available to owners of luxury penthouses. Posing as an apartment-hunting Hungarian billionaire, Andi Schmied accessed and documented the views of over thirty of the city’s most exclusive high-rise properties. Her book, Private Views: A High-Rise Panorama of Manhattan, offers a glimpse into this elite world. Showcasing the surreal strategies of persuasion used by real estate agents, the book allows readers to bypass the gatekeepers of luxury real estate; guiding them through the sunset from Trump Tower, dawn over Central Park from the tallest residential tower on Earth, and showing samples of the most luxurious materials, such as the Siberian marble, used in soaking tubs overlooking the Statue of Liberty. The skyscrapers visited by Schmied were carefully selected due to their representation of a new type of luxury. Those selected for their architectural interest include the MOMA Expansion Tower by Jean Nouvel, Gehry Tower, Jenga Tower, and 432 Park Avenue. Among the buildings visited for political reasons were the Trump Tower or Time Warner Centre, where recently more than a dozen owners have gone to prison, after anonymously buying an apartment through shell companies. For buildings of economic interest, Schmied visited 220 Central Park South, where its penthouse duplex has been sold for a record sales price. Other buildings selected ranged from reconstructed early American skyscrapers to luxury condos (such as the Woolworth Tower Residences, or 70 Pine) and penthouse suites for sale within luxury hotels (such as the Four Seasons, or Ritz Carlton). Schmied’s project is an art and architecture project, but the outcome touches upon various professional fields, such as sociology, economy, urban studies, and anthropology.

Deux faits signent la nature profonde de l’être humain : (i) un cerveau d’une grande plasticité et (ii) la puissance impérieuse de la culture qui se manifeste non seulement par la diversité et l’intensité de son expression, mais aussi par la forte influence qu’elle exerce rétroactivement sur le développement de notre architecture cérébrale – qui l’a rendue possible. Cette plasticité développementale, résumée dans l’idée que « nous héritons notre cerveau ; nous acquérons notre esprit » (we inherit our brains ; we acquire our minds)(Goldschmidt 2000), relève d’un processus plus général appelé « altricialité » par les éthologues. Le terme est dérivé de l’anglais altricial, mot qui vient lui-même du latin altrix : « celle qui nourrit », « nourrice » (Gaffiot 1934). Dans son acception première, l’altricialité signifie qu’une espèce n’est pas immédiatement compétente à la naissance, contrairement aux espèces dites précoces. C’est le cas, par exemple, de la plupart des passereaux qui naissent les yeux fermés et dont la survie dépend entièrement de l’aide apportée par leur entourage. Il en va de même pour notre espèce. Dans le cas des nouveau-nés humains, toutefois, s’ajoute à l’altricialité primaire une altricialité secondaire. On désigne ainsi le fait que notre cerveau n’est pleinement compétent (sur les plans cognitif, émotionnel, sensoriel et moteur) que tardivement. La force et la durée de la croissance cérébrale post-natale caractérisent cette altricialité secondaire. Du point de vue de la force, le chimpanzé Pan troglodytes, espèce animale qui nous est phylogénétiquement la plus proche, a un coefficient de croissance cérébrale de 2,5 entre la naissance et l’âge adulte, contre 3,3 chez les humains (DeSilva et Lesnik 2008). Du point de vue de la durée, on a longtemps cru que la maturité du cerveau humain coïncidait avec la puberté, mais on sait aujourd’hui que la période de surproduction et d’élimination des épines dendritiques sur les neurones pyramidaux du cortex préfrontal court jusqu’à la trentaine (Petanjeket al. 2011). Outre des contraintes obstétriques, cette maturation prolongée est probablement due aux coûts métaboliques élevés du développement cérébral (Goyal et al. 2014), un processus de co-évolution ayant favorisé l’étalement dans le temps de la dépense énergétique (Kuzawa et al. 2014). Cette forte altricialité cérébrale est propre aux êtres humains, le contrôle génétique qui s’exerce sur l’organisation somatopique de notre cortex, sur la connectique cérébrale et sur les aires d’association étant plus faible que chez le chimpanzé commun. Par exemple, deux frères chimpanzés auront des sillons cérébraux davantage similaires que deux frères humains, parce que le cerveau des premiers est moins réceptif aux influences environnementales que celui des membres de notre espèce (Gómez-Robles et al. 2015). Cette spécificité du cerveau humain est tout aussi importante que son quotient d’encéphalisation (6,9 fois plus élevé que celui d’un autre mammifère du même poids, et 2,6 fois supérieur à celui d’un chimpanzé), le nombre élevé de ses neurones (86 milliards contre 28 milliards chez le chimpanzé), la complexité de sa connectique (environ 1014 synapses), les changements néoténiques lors de l’expression des gènes (Somel et al. 2009) et son architecture complexe. Chez le nouveau-né humain, la neurogenèse est achevée, excepté dans la zone sous-ventriculaire – connectée aux bulbes olfactifs – et la zone sous-granulaire, qui part du gyrus denté de l’hippocampe (Eriksson et al. 1998). Toutefois, si tous les neurones sont déjà présents, le cerveau néonatal représente moins de 30% de sa taille adulte. Immédiatement après la naissance, sa croissance se poursuit au même taux qu’au stade fœtal pour atteindre 50% de la taille adulte vers 1 an et 95% vers 10 ans. Cette croissance concerne essentiellement les connexions des neurones entre eux (synaptogenèse, mais aussi élagage de cette interconnectivité ou synaptose) et la myélinisation néocorticale. À chaque minute de la vie du bébé, rappelle Jean-Pierre Changeux (2002), « plus de deux millions de synapses se mettent en place ! » Au total, 50% de ces connexions se font après la naissance (Changeux 2003). Cette spécificité d’Homo sapiens a une portée anthropologique capitale. Elle expose si fortement les êtres humains aux influences de leur environnement qu’ils deviennent naturellement des êtres hyper-sociaux et hyper-culturels, ce qu’avait pressenti Malinowski (1922 : 79-80) quand il soutenait que nos « états mentaux sont façonnés d’une certaine manière » par les « institutions au sein desquelles ils se développent ». Le développement du cerveau dans la longue durée permet une « imprégnation » progressive du tissu cérébral par l’environnement physique et social (Changeux 1983), en particulier lors des phases de socialisation primaire et secondaire. L’être humain a ainsi des «dispositions épigénétiques à l’empreinte culturelle » (Changeux 2002). Les effets sociaux et les incidences évolutionnaires (Kuzawa et Bragg 2012) d’une telle aptitude sont immenses. L’entourage doit non seulement aider les nouveau-nés, mais aussi accompagner les enfants jusqu’à leur développement complet, l’immaturité du cerveau des adolescents étant à l’origine de leur caractère souvent impulsif. Cet accompagnement de l’enfant se traduit par des changements dans la structure sociale, au sein de la famille et de la société tout entière, notamment sous la forme d’institutions d’apprentissage social et culturel. Les êtres humains sont ainsi contraints de coopérer, d’abord à l’intérieur de leur groupe familial et d’appartenance, puis sous des formes plus ouvertes (voir Coopération). Née de processus évolutifs anciens d’au moins 200 000 ans (Neubaueret al. 2018), l’altricialité secondaire nous donne un avantage adaptatif : contrairement à d’autres espèces, nos comportements ne sont pas « mis sur des rails » à la naissance, ce qui les rend flexibles face à des environnements changeants, favorisant ainsi la diversité phénotypique et culturelle. Cette plasticité cérébrale peut produire le meilleur. Par exemple, 15 mois seulement d’éducation musicale avant l’âge de 7 ans peuvent renforcer les connexions entre les deux hémisphères cérébraux (Schlaug et al. 1995) et induire d’autres changements structuraux dans les régions assurant des fonctions motrices, auditives et visuo-spatiales (Hyde et al. 2009). Une formation musicale précoce prévient aussi la perte d’audition (White-Schwoch et al. 2013) et améliore la perception de la parole (Du et Zatorre 2017). Cependant, comme cela est souvent le cas en évolution, il y a un prix à payer pour cet avantage considérable qu’est l’altricialité secondaire. Il a pour contrepartie un appétit vorace en énergie de notre cerveau (Pontzer et al. 2016). Il nous rend plus vulnérables, non seulement jusqu’à l’adolescence mais tout au long de la vie où, suppose-t-on, des anomalies des reconfigurations neuronales contribuent au développement de certaines pathologies neurologiques (Greenhill et al. 2015). Enfin, un risque associé au « recyclage culturel des cartes corticales » (Dehaene et Cohen 2007) est rarement noté : si ce recyclage peut produire le meilleur, il peut aussi produire le pire, selon la nature de la matrice culturelle dans laquelle les individus sont pris (Candau 2017). Par exemple, le choix social et culturel consistant à développer des industries polluantes peut provoquer des maladies neurodégénératives et divers désordres mentaux (Underwood 2017), notamment chez les enfants (Bennett et al. 2016), phénomène qui est accentué quand il est associé à l’adversité sociale précoce (Stein et al. 2016). Toujours dans le registre économique, la mise en œuvre de politiques qui appauvrissent des populations peut affecter le développement intellectuel des enfants (Luby et al. 2013), un message clé du World Development Report 2015 étant que la pauvreté est une « taxe cognitive ». Un dernier exemple : Voigtländer et Voth (2015) ont montré que les Allemands nés dans les années 1920 et 1930 manifestent un degré d’antisémitisme deux à trois fois plus élevé que leurs compatriotes nés avant ou après cette période. Bien plus souvent que d’autres Allemands, ils se représentent les Juifs comme « une population qui a trop d’influence dans le monde » ou « qui est responsable de sa propre persécution ». Ceci est la conséquence de l’endoctrinement nazi qu’ils ont subi durant toute leur enfance, notamment à l’école, en pleine période d’altricialité secondaire. En résumé, l’altricialité secondaire est au fondement (i) de l’aptitude naturelle de notre cerveau à devenir une représentation du monde et (ii) d’une focalisation culturelle de cette représentation, sous l’influence de la diversité des matrices culturelles, cela pour le meilleur comme pour le pire. Cette hyperplasticité du cerveau pendant la période altricielle laisse la place à une plasticité plus modérée à l’âge adulte puis décroît à l’approche du grand âge, mais elle ne disparaît jamais complètement. Par conséquent, loin de voir dans les données neurobiologiques des contraintes qui auraient pour seule caractéristique de déterminer les limites de la variabilité culturelle – limitation qui est incontestable – il faut les considérer également comme la possibilité de cette variabilité.

Technique and creativity Having been called upon to provide a contribution to a publication dedicated to “Techne”, I feel it is fitting to start from the theme of technique, given that for too many years now, we have fruitlessly attempted to understand the inner workings of cinema whilst disregarding the element of technique. And this has posed a significant problem in our field of study, as it would be impossible to gain a true understanding of what cinema is without immersing ourselves in the technical and industrial culture of the 19th century. It was within this culture that a desire was born: to mould the imaginary through the new techniques of reproduction and transfiguration of reality through images. Studying the development of the so-called “pre-cinema” – i.e. the period up to the conventional birth of cinema on 28 December 1895 with the presentation of the Cinématographe Lumière – we discover that the technical history of cinema is not only almost more enthralling than its artistic and cultural history, but that it contains all the great theoretical, philosophical and scientific insights that we need to help us understand the social, economic and cultural impact that cinema had on the culture of the 20th century. At the 1900 Paris Exposition, when cinema had already existed in some form for a few years, when the first few short films of narrative fiction also already existed, the cinematograph was placed in the Pavilion of Technical Discoveries, to emphasise the fact that the first wonder, this element of unparalleled novelty and modernity, was still there, in technique, in this marvel of innovation and creativity. I would like to express my idea through the words of Franco Moretti, who claims in one of his most recent works that it is only possible to understand form through the forces that pulsate through it and press on it from beneath, finally allowing the form itself to come to the surface and make itself visible and comprehensible to our senses. As such, the cinematic form – that which appears on the screen, that which is now so familiar to us, that which each of us has now internalised, that has even somehow become capable of configuring our way of thinking, imagining, dreaming – that form is underpinned by forces that allow it to eventually make its way onto the screen and become artistic and narrative substance. And those forces are the forces of technique, the forces of industry, the economic, political and social forces without which we could never hope to understand cinema. One of the issues that I always make a point of addressing in the first few lessons with my students is that if they think that the history of cinema is made up of films, directors, narrative plots to be understood, perhaps even retold in some way, then they are entirely on the wrong track; if, on the other hand, they understand that it is the story of an institution with economic, political and social drivers within it that can, in some way, allow us to come to the great creators, the great titles, but that without a firm grasp of those drivers, there is no point in even attempting to explore it, then they are on the right track. As I see it, cinema in the twentieth century was a great democratic, interclassist laboratory such as no other art has ever been, and this occurred thanks to the fact that what underpinned it was an industrial reasoning: it had to respond to the capital invested in it, it had to make money, and as such, it had to reach the largest possible number of people, immersing it into a wholly unprecedented relational situation. The aim was to be as inclusive as possible, ultimately giving rise to the idea that cinema could not be autonomous, as other forms of art could be, but that it must instead be able to negotiate all the various forces acting upon it, pushing it in every direction. This concept of negotiation is one which has been explored in great detail by one of the greatest film theorists of our modern age, Francesco Casetti. In a 2005 book entitled “Eye of the Century”, which I consider to be a very important work, Casetti actually argues that cinema has proven itself to be the art form most capable of adhering to the complexity and fast pace of the short century, and that it is for this very reason that its golden age (in the broadest sense) can be contained within the span of just a hundred years. The fact that cinema was the true epistemological driving force of 20th-century modernity – a position now usurped by the Internet – is not, in my opinion, something that diminishes the strength of cinema, but rather an element of even greater interest. Casetti posits that cinema was the great negotiator of new cultural needs, of the need to look at art in a different way, of the willingness to adapt to technique and technology: indeed, the form of cinema has always changed according to the techniques and technologies that it has brought to the table or established a dialogue with on a number of occasions. Barry Salt, whose background is in physics, wrote an important book – publishing it at his own expense, as a mark of how difficult it is to work in certain fields – entitled “Film Style and Technology”, in which he calls upon us stop writing the history of cinema starting from the creators, from the spirit of the time, from the great cultural and historical questions, and instead to start afresh by following the techniques available over the course of its development. Throughout the history of cinema, the creation of certain films has been the result of a particular set of technical conditions: having a certain type of film, a certain type of camera, only being able to move in a certain way, needing a certain level of lighting, having an entire arsenal of equipment that was very difficult to move and handle; and as the equipment, medium and techniques changed and evolved over the years, so too did the type of cinema that we were able to make. This means framing the history of cinema and film theory in terms of the techniques that were available, and starting from there: of course, whilst Barry Salt’s somewhat provocative suggestion by no means cancels out the entire cultural, artistic and aesthetic discourse in cinema – which remains fundamental – it nonetheless raises an interesting point, as if we fail to consider the methods and techniques of production, we will probably never truly grasp what cinema is. These considerations also help us to understand just how vast the “construction site” of cinema is – the sort of “factory” that lies behind the production of any given film. Erwin Panofsky wrote a single essay on cinema in the 1930s entitled “Style and Medium in the Motion Pictures” – a very intelligent piece, as one would expect from Panofsky – in which at a certain point, he compares the construction site of the cinema to those of Gothic cathedrals, which were also under an immense amount of pressure from different forces, namely religious ones, but also socio-political and economic forces which ultimately shaped – in the case of the Gothic cathedral and its development – an idea of the relationship between the earth and the otherworldly. The same could be said for cinema, because it also involves starting with something very earthly, very grounded, which is then capable of unleashing an idea of imaginary metamorphosis. Some scholars, such as Edgar Morin, will say that cinema is increasingly becoming the new supernatural, the world of contemporary gods, as religion gradually gives way to other forms of deification. Panofsky’s image is a very focused one: by making film production into a construction site, which to all intents and purposes it is, he leads us to understand that there are different forces at work, represented by a producer, a scriptwriter, a director, but also a workforce, the simple labourers, as is always the case in large construction sites, calling into question the idea of who the “creator” truly is. So much so that cinema, now more than ever before, is reconsidering the question of authorship, moving towards a “history of cinema without names” in an attempt to combat the “policy of the author” which, in the 1950s, especially in France, identified the director as the de facto author of the film. Today, we are still in that position, with the director still considered the author of the film, but that was not always so: back in the 1910s, in the United States, the author of the film was the scriptwriter, the person who wrote it (as is now the case for TV series, where they have once again taken pride of place as the showrunner, the creator, the true author of the series, and nobody remembers the names of the directors of the individual episodes); or at times, it can be the producer, as was the case for a long time when the Oscar for Best Picture, for example, was accepted by the producer in their capacity as the commissioner, as the “owner” of the work. As such, the theme of authorship is a very controversial one indeed, but one which helps us to understand the great meeting of minds that goes into the production of a film, starting with the technicians, of course, but also including the actors. Occasionally, a film is even attributed to the name of a star, almost as if to declare that that film is theirs, in that it is their body and their talent as an actor lending it a signature that provides far more of a draw to audiences than the name of the director does. In light of this, the theme of authorship, which Panofsky raised in the 1930s through the example of the Gothic cathedral, which ultimately does not have a single creator, is one which uses the image of the construction site to also help us to better understand what kind of development a film production can go through and to what extent this affects its critical and historical reception; as such, grouping films together based on their director means doing something that, whilst certainly not incorrect in itself, precludes other avenues of interpretation and analysis which could have favoured or could still favour a different reading of the “cinematographic construction site”. Design and execution The great classic Hollywood film industry was a model that, although it no longer exists in the same form today, unquestionably made an indelible mark at a global level on the history not only of cinema, but more broadly, of the culture of the 20th century. The industry involved a very strong vertical system resembling an assembly line, revolving around producers, who had a high level of decision-making autonomy and a great deal of expertise, often inclined towards a certain genre of film and therefore capable of bringing together the exact kinds of skills and visions required to make that particular film. The history of classic American cinema is one that can also be reconstructed around the units that these producers would form. The “majors”, along with the so-called “minors”, were put together like football teams, with a chairman flanked by figures whom we would nowadays refer to as a sporting director and a managing director, who built the team based on specific ideas, “buying” directors, scriptwriters, scenographers, directors of photography, and even actors and actresses who generally worked almost exclusively for their major – although they could occasionally be “loaned out” to other studios. This system led to a very marked characterisation and allowed for the film to be designed in a highly consistent, recognisable way in an age when genres reigned supreme and there was the idea that in order to keep the audience coming back, it was important to provide certain reassurances about what they would see: anyone going to see a Western knew what sorts of characters and storylines to expect, with the same applying to a musical, a crime film, a comedy, a melodrama, and so on. The star system served to fuel this working method, with these major actors also representing both forces and materials in the hands of an approach to the filmmaking which had the ultimate objective of constructing the perfect film, in which everything had to function according to a rule rooted in both the aesthetic and the economic. Gore Vidal wrote that from 1939 onwards, Hollywood did not produce a single “wrong” film: indeed, whilst certainly hyperbolic, this claim confirms that that system produced films that were never wrong, never off-key, but instead always perfectly in tune with what the studios wished to achieve. Whilst this long-entrenched system of yesteryear ultimately imploded due to certain historical phenomena that determined it to be outdated, the way of thinking about production has not changed all that much, with film design remaining tied to a professional approach that is still rooted within it. The overwhelming majority of productions still start from a system which analyses the market and the possible economic impact of the film, before even starting to tackle the various steps that lead up to the creation of the film itself. Following production systems and the ways in which they have changed, in terms of both the technology and the cultural contexts, also involves taking stock of the still considerable differences that exist between approaches to filmmaking in different countries, or indeed the similarities linking highly disparate economic systems (consider, for example, India’s “Bollywood” or Nigeria’s “Nollywood”: two incredibly strong film industries that we are not generally familiar with as they lack global distribution, although they are built very solidly). In other words, any attempt to study Italian cinema and American cinema – to stay within this double field – with the same yardstick is unthinkable, precisely because the context of their production and design is completely different. Composition and innovation Studying the publications on cinema in the United States in the early 1900s – which, from about 1911 to 1923, offers us a revealing insight into the attempts made to garner an in-depth understanding of how this new storytelling machine worked and the development of the first real cultural industry of the modern age – casts light on the centrality of the issues of design and composition. I remain convinced that without reading and understanding that debate, it is very difficult to understand why cinema is as we have come to be familiar with it today. Many educational works investigated the inner workings of cinema, and some, having understood them, suggested that they were capable of teaching others to do so. These publications have almost never been translated into Italian and remain seldom studied even in the US, and yet they are absolutely crucial for understanding how cinema established itself on an industrial and aesthetic level. There are two key words that crop up time and time again in these books, the first being “action”, one of the first words uttered when a film starts rolling: “lights, camera, action”. This collection of terms is interesting in that “motore” highlights the presence of a machine that has to be started up, followed by “action”, which expresses that something must happen at that moment in front of that machine, otherwise the film will not exist. As such, “action” – a term to which I have devoted some of my studies – is a fundamental word here in that it represents a sort of moment of birth of the film that is very clear – tangible, even. The other word is “composition”, and this is an even more interesting word with a history that deserves a closer look: the first professor of cinema in history, Victor Oscar Freeburg (I edited the Italian translation of his textbook “The Art of Photoplay Making”, published in 1918), took up his position at Columbia University in 1915 and, in doing so, took on the task of teaching the first ever university course in cinema. Whilst Freeburg was, for his time, a very well-educated and highly-qualified person, having studied at Yale and then obtained his doctorate in theatre at Columbia, cinema was not entirely his field of expertise. He was asked to teach a course entitled “Photoplay Writing”. At the time, a film was known as a “photoplay”, in that it was a photographed play of sorts, and the fact that the central topic of the course was photoplay writing makes it clear that back then, the scriptwriter was considered the main author of the work. From this point of view, it made sense to entrust the teaching of cinema to an expert in theatre, based on the idea that it was useful to first and foremost teach a sort of photographable dramaturgy. However, upon arriving at Columbia, Freeburg soon realised whilst preparing his course that “photoplay writing” risked misleading the students, as it is not enough to simply write a story in order to make a film; as such, he decided to change the title of his course to “photoplay composition”. This apparently minor alteration, from “writing” to “composition”, in fact marked a decisive conceptual shift in that it highlighted that it was no longer enough to merely write: one had to “compose”. So it was that the author of a film became, according to Freeburg, not the scriptwriter or director, but the “cinema composer” (a term of his own coinage), thus directing and broadening the concept of composition towards music, on the one hand, and architecture, on the other. We are often inclined to think that cinema has inherited expressive modules that come partly from literature, partly from theatre and partly from painting, but in actual fact, what Freeburg helps us to understand is that there are strong elements of music and architecture in a film, emphasising the lofty theme of the project. In his book, he explores at great length the relationship between static and dynamic forms in cinema, a topic that few have ever addressed in that way and that again, does not immediately spring to mind as applicable to a film. I believe that those initial intuitions were the result of a reflection unhindered by all the prejudices and preconceived notions that subsequently began to condition film studies as a discipline, and I feel that they are of great use to use today because they guide us, on the one hand, towards a symphonic idea of filmmaking, and on the other, towards an idea that preserves the fairly clear imprint of architecture. Space-Time In cinema as in architecture, the relationship between space and time is a crucial theme: in every textbook, space and time are amongst the first chapters to be studied precisely because in cinema, they undergo a process of metamorphosis – as Edgar Morin would say – which is vital to constructing the intermediate world of film. Indeed, from both a temporal and a spatial point of view, cinema provides a kind of ubiquitous opportunity to overlap different temporalities and spatialities, to move freely from one space to another, but above all, to construct new systems of time. The rules of film editing – especially so-called “invisible editing”, i.e. classical editing that conceals its own presence – are rules built upon specific and precise connections that hold together different spaces – even distant ones – whilst nonetheless giving the impression of unity, of contiguity, of everything that cinema never is in reality, because cinema is constantly fragmented and interrupted, even though we very often perceive it in continuity. As such, from both a spatial and a temporal perspective, there are technical studies that explain the rules of how to edit so as to give the idea of spatial continuity, as well as theoretical studies that explain how cinema has transformed our sense of space and time. To mark the beginning of Parma’s run as Italy’s Capital of Culture, an exhibition was organised entitled “Time Machine. Seeing and Experiencing Time”, curated by Antonio Somaini, with the challenge of demonstrating how cinema, from its earliest experiments to the digital age, has managed to manipulate and transform time, profoundly affecting our way of engaging with it. The themes of time and space are vital to understanding cinema, including from a philosophical point of view: in two of Gilles Deleuze’s seminal volumes, “The Movement Image” and “The Time Image”, the issues of space and time become the two great paradigms not only for explaining cinema, but also – as Deleuze himself says – for explaining a certain 20th-century philosophy. Deleuze succeeds in a truly impressive endeavour, namely linking cinema to philosophical reflection – indeed, making cinema into an instrument of philosophical thought; this heteronomy of filmmaking is then also transferred to its ability to become an instrument that goes beyond its own existence to become a reflection on the century that saw it as a protagonist of sorts. Don Ihde argues that every era has a technical discovery that somehow becomes what he calls an “epistemological engine”: a tool that opens up a system of thought that would never have been possible without that discovery. One of the many examples of this over the centuries is the camera obscura, but we could also name cinema as the defining discovery for 20th-century thought: indeed, cinema is indispensable for understanding the 20th century, just as the Internet is for understanding our way of thinking in the 21st century. Real-virtual Nowadays, the film industry is facing the crisis of cinema closures, ultimately caused by ever-spreading media platforms and the power of the economic competition that they are exerting by aggressively entering the field of production and distribution, albeit with a different angle on the age-old desire to garner audiences. Just a few days ago, Martin Scorsese was lamenting the fact that on these platforms, the artistic project is in danger of foundering, as excellent projects are placed in a catalogue alongside a series of products of varying quality, thus confusing the viewer. A few years ago, during the opening ceremony of the academic year at the University of Southern California, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas expressed the same concept about the future of cinema in a different way. Lucas argued that cinemas would soon have to become incredibly high-tech places where people can have an experience that is impossible to reproduce elsewhere, with a ticket price that takes into account the expanded and increased experiential value on offer thanks to the new technologies used. Spielberg, meanwhile, observed that cinemas will manage to survive if they manage to transform the cinemagoer from a simple viewer into a player, an actor of sorts. The history of cinema has always been marked by continuous adaptation to technological evolutions. I do not believe that cinema will ever end. Jean-Luc Godard, one of the great masters of the Nouvelle Vague, once said in an interview: «I am very sorry not to have witnessed the birth of cinema, but I am sure that I will witness its death». Godard, who was born in 1930, is still alive. Since its origins, cinema has always transformed rather than dying. Raymond Bellour says that cinema is an art that never finishes finishing, a phrase that encapsulates the beauty and the secret of cinema: an art that never quite finishes finishing is an art that is always on the very edge of the precipice but never falls off, although it leans farther and farther over that edge. This is undoubtedly down to cinema’s ability to continually keep up with technique and technology, and in doing so to move – even to a different medium – to relocate, as contemporary theorists say, even finally moving out of cinemas themselves to shift onto platforms and tablets, yet all without ever ceasing to be cinema. That said, we should give everything we’ve got to ensure that cinemas survive.