Z1P9Bio

N: Rory Kavanagh.

T: Traces d’une Cité Collée.

‘Traces of a Collaged City.’

D: This graduation project proposes a National Centre for Heritage and Preservation that, amidst the popular calls for an exacting restoration, seeks to knock Notre-Dame Cathedral from its figurative pedestal and, instead, to raise awareness of the other structures on the Île de la Cité, both past and present, that have been just as influential in the Île’s development.

This project is deeply rooted in Tim Ingold’s ‘Meshwork’ worldview, whereby all things, animate and inanimate, play an equal and collaborative part in forging our perception of the world today.

Essentially, as opposed to the misconception of Notre-Dame as the Île’s only focus, I hope to present the Île as the resulting collage of Sainte-Chapelle, Hôtel-Dieu and various other architectural fragments which, in their reconfigured whole, generate a newfound appreciation of the Île’s rich history – one which even many Parisians remain unaware of.

By architecturally collaging as many as twenty-two historical ‘documents’ with my contemporary ‘supplement’, the result is what Jorge Otero-Pailos terms an Île-wide ‘Monumentary’. This Monumentary then creates a perception of the Île as a meshwork quilt of disparate historical fragments that collectively speak of the Île’s mutual and continual evolution.

L: roryakavanagh@gmail.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/rory-kavanagh-9b0a221b0/