Beyond the Ornament

Curated by Co . with Camille Ayme Frédérique Barchelard Boris Lesouëf Clément Lobbens

A n a s s o c ia t ed ex hi b it i o n w i t h t h e 2 0 1 3 L i s bon A r c hi t ec t ur e Tr i ennal e

Margaux Parillaud

B E Y O N D T H E O R N A M E N T History and tales of Alentejo’s marbles

Our exhibition is a focus at the moment when the marble industry is in crisis, in a gap, the time before or after an event.

We choose to look neither quarries as an architectural heritage of this territory, nor the beauty of the architecture built in the history of ornamental stone, but rather we want by the extracted material, the Marble, to tell the travel routes, the migrations these treasures deployed within these networks.

Contact Frédérique Barchelard & Clément Lobbens 36, rue de la Villette 75019 Paris postmarble@gmail.com

Co l l abo rat i o n ( Co. ) is a think tank of five people including architects, urbanist, curator, photograph and graphist. We are motivated by an interdisciplinary approach of architecture, our research subjects are positioned at the intersection, the articulation of different scales, and several fields of observation.

(+33) 6 48 21 51 81

Coordinator Boris Lesouëf boris.lesouef@gmail.com

Camille Ayme ( 1983, St Etienne, Fr ) Graduated from both the architecture school of Paris La Villette (2010) and the fine art school of Cergy-Pontoise (2012), pursue an artistic work around the component of the modern city.

8, av. Yves Emmanuel Baudoin 06130 Grasse (+ 33) 6 24 81 53 41

Links beyondtheornament.tumblr.com

Frédérique Barchelard ( 1987, Clermont-Ferrand, Fr ) Graduated with honors in 2012 at the National Superior School of Architecture Paris-La Villette. Currently she works for l’AUC. Boris Lesouëf ( 1987, Reunion Island, Fr ) is an architect and curator. Graduated from the architecture school of Paris-la-Villette in 2012, he pursue a field of interdisciplinary practices between art, architecture, critism et research.

Clément Lobbens ( 1985, Nouméa, Fr ) is a freelance architect, graduated from the architecture school of Paris La Villette. His work reflects the diversity of his experiences, his beliefs in the architectural discipline and an eclectic practice.

Margaux Parillaud ( 1989, Vélizy, Fr ) has a diploma in graphic design and new medias at L’Ecole Nationale des Arts et Industrie Graphique Estienne, Paris. She now studies in Amsterdam at Gerrit rietveld Academie in the Audiovisual Art departement.

Vila Viçosa is located in Alentejo, near Spain, in an area barely inhabited. Only long strained roads between villages betray the activity. Vila Viçosa is a small town with white reflects calmly turns and lasts for centuries.

The toponymy of Vila Viçosa defines the geographical feature of this place. A fertile valley which history is built from the top of the fortresses that guard the horizon, to the cavities of the marble mining. It is the epicenter of a mineralogical island buried in the center of Portugal, a geological stratum of more than 30 km long and 5 km wide.

Here, the arid landscape delineates alliances and oasis that the marble industry has developed and shaped by tapping into the ground. This region is at the intersection of logic marble industry and local governance, at the heart of the ‘Regional Plan of the Marble Zone ‘.

The exportation and deployment of Marble have built this country, its landscape, its economy and its network of relationships.

Marble embodies the double condition of this territory between the implementation of vernacular architecture and the mass export. Between an inherited career and the prestige of the ornamental stone deployed over the world. Migrations and movements generated by the exportation of Marble have built a matrix, of networks, places of transit of people and goods, places of exchange and sharing of structured and structural places.

The exportation of Marble invents a metropolitan resonance, monuments, plazas, gathering places, housing, networks full of a heavy historical and cultural meaning, but outdated by a contemporary reality and a everyday use.

We choose to focus at the moment when the marble industry is in crisis, in a hole, a gap, the time before or after an event.

We choose to look neither quarries as an architectural heritage of this territory, nor the beauty of the architecture built in the history of ornamental stone, but rather we want by the extracted material, the Marble, to tell the travel routes, the migrations these treasures deployed within these networks.

What are the shape, the nature and substance of these migrations that unify this immaterial metropolitan condition? How to describe networks that incubus of this metropolis - also including the special identity and the way they are used? How would you describe this metropolitan condition when you discover the machines that extract marble and men who works around, over the cemetery wall, describe this metropolitan condition when you cross on the road a truck loaded with a block of white marble veined with pink, or when you are relied on a cool marble countertop in sunny Paris.

It is the possibility of this metropolitan condition, stimulated by material and immaterial fields, we purpose to map, relate, and collect.

T H E

T E R R I T O R Y

The city of Vila Viรงosa is located in the Alentejo, in a poorly inhabited area near Spain.

The long strings of the roads between the villages are the only clue that tells the actual existence of an activity. A small village with immaculate cavities quivers for centuries.

Vila Viรงosa and the quarries (2013, Co.) View of the toponymy

Open space office ( Tito Mouraz ) Tito Mouraz was born in 1977 in Canas de Senhorim, Portugal. He finished the Visual Arts and Photography course in the Superior Art School of Oporto (Escola Superior Artística do Porto) in 2010, being this the city where he lives and works currently. Exhibits regularly since 2009 in Portugal and abroad, being the most relevant exhibitions in Encontros da Imagem de Braga (2010)

and Módulo – Centro Difusor de Arte (2011).

Geological map of a part of the anticline of Estremoz ( map Gonçalves ) This representation of the mineralogical island where are extracted Alentejo’s marbles, draws a new territory, a new frame of reference.

The most important production center of Portugal is on the Estremoz-Borba-Vila Viçosa anticlinorium in the Ossa Morena zone.

A geological stratum of more than 30 km long and 5 km wide.

L A T E N T

C R I S I S

When the portuguese deputy Pedro Guerreiro points the problematic of the ornemental rocks in Alentejo during an european congress, the unsignificant appereance of this question woke our curiosity up. This territory in crisis but rich from its incredible underground resources has finally a strong historical influence and come nearly metropolitan stakes. A lot of questions come in our mind then : How the history of this poor area is linked to the ornementation one ? What is its story and what is ornementation in a time of global crisis ? How this economy is set up today ? We would examine the situation of the Alentejo marble beyond the borders : In which way the excavation of an ornemental rock, exported in the whole world creates journeys, meetings, mogrations that build the environment of their original site.

Parliamentary questions 12 April 2006

by Pedro Guerreiro (GUE/NGL) to the Commission Subject: Situation in the ornamental stone (marble) sector in Alentejo During a recent visit to firms involved in the quarrying and processing of marble in the municipalities of Vila Viรงosa, Borba and Estremoz the questioner was informed by the managers about a number of problems currently affecting this important sector in Portugal, which are having substantial economic and social repercussions, especially for the region of Alentejo.After a period of great expansion the sector is now going through a difficult period, and the prices and sales of many firms are falling continuously and steadily.

The situation is to a great extent due to the war in the Middle East waged by the United States and its allies, the rising value of the euro and the emergence of new producing and exporting countries worldwide.In view of the fact that in the Alentejo region a large proportion of economic activity is centred on this industry, and that the closure of businesses and the consequent rise in unemployment will lead to a further deterioration in the economic situation and serious social problems, can the Commission say: 1. Whether it is aware of the serious problems encountered by the ornamental stone (in particular marble) sector in the region; 2. What steps it intends to take to minimise the adverse effects of the current situation in the sector and to support this important industry, especially in the Alentejo region?

M A R B L E We have decided to analyse this territory through the prism of the material. The exhibition would be a historical and conceptual lecture of the Alentejo and the Portugal through the way of the marble industry, especially with the paradox of its preciousness and the decrease. We would as well question the value of this soil, because after the excavation of the ore, what happens to the giants holes left in the ground ? Isn’t the quarry itself, long after the end of its exploitation isn’t a true heritage ? What is the value of the marble, after it has been transformed and exported, when it paved the ground and walls of some palace in Dubai ? Looking at it beyond its precious characteristic or its industrial specifications, but investigate the local or international territorial strategies. Create a two-part vision, which would bring face to face an historical relecture and a projection of this territory in the future. How the end of the exploitation of this ornemental rock would substantially modify the landscape, economy and infrastrucutres of the area ?

From the cimetery & Behind the cimetery ( Alentejo, 2012, Co. ) The paradox of an industry under a city

M I G R A T I O N S We choose to look neither quarries as an architectural heritage of this territory, nor the beauty of the architecture built in the history of ornamental stone, but rather we want by the extracted material, the Marble, to tell the travel routes, the migrations these treasures deployed within these networks.

We would like to redraw the economic journey of this portuguese rock in its own country and through the world, between its past and the possible futur, with a prospective hybrid study, between a diagnostic and a tell.

What are the shape, the nature and substance of these migrations that unify this immaterial metropolitan condition?

How to describe networks that incubus of this metropolis - also including the special identity and the way they are used?

It is the possibility of this metropolitan condition , stimulated by material and imaterial fields, we propose to map, relate & collect

The Wien network ( F.Barchelard, 2011 )

R E G I O N A L I S M A N D W O R L D the ornementation marble in Portugal and elsewhere.

From its use in vernacular architecture to its utilisation in other part of the world, we would investigate the material in a restrictive sens. Unlike some other rocks that are used only in the area of their excavation (such as the Volvic rock in Clermont Ferrand, France), the marble has been largely exported. The ornementation is the main explanation of it. We would like to offer a chronological analysis of this use when it’s regionalist (in Portugal), and when it’s international.

Marble’s exportation ( Alentejo, 2012 )

Torre das tres coroas ( Estremoz, 2012 ) The tower of three crowns in marble

Stonecutter ( Borba, 2012 )

G O V E R N A N C E

A N D

E X P A N S I O N

the wealth of the soil to create a financial godsend and to lead to some power war. Vila Viloça has always been in the heart of the royal history, and in the ancestral infrastructures as well.

How would it be in the future ?

The Duc of Braga ( Vila Viç Power’s

cal Palace ance çosa, 2012 ) incarnation

Aclamação de D. João IV de Portugal João IV de Portugal, born in Vila Viçosa, the 19th March 1604, was the King of Portugal and the Algarves from 1640 to his death. He was the grandson of Catherine, Duchess of Braganza, who had in 1580 claimed the Portuguese crown and sparked the struggle for the throne of Portugal.

John the Restorer, on the eve of his death in 1656, the Portuguese Empire reached its zenith, spanning almost 3,000,000,000 acres (12,000,000 km2).

M E N

A N D

Q U A R R I E S

We also would like to talk about the heritage of those places. How the marble exploitation is linked to familial storie ? When, from generation to generation, people are working with the same material. What is going on with the next generation ?

Il Capo ( a film by Yuri Ancarani, 2010 ) Monte Bettogli, Carrara: in the marble quarries men and machines dig the mountain. “Il Capo� (The Chief) manages, coordinates and guides quarrymen and heavy-duty machines using a language consisting solely of gestures and signs.

Conducting his dangerous and sublime orchestra against the backdrop of the sheerslopes and peaks of the Apuane Alps, the Chief works in total noise, which create a paradoxical silence.

S T O R I E S

A N D

I L L U S T R A T I O N S

We want to illustrate our position with different medias. Our team is composed by people with rich and different paths, that lead to a large possibilities of formalization.

Relate, map & collect The stories would be told through big maps or drawings, that would embody the past and the future. Big panels like wallpaper would be in the scale of our analysis, but wouldn’t prevent us to include little stories, real or fictive. We would also collect objects and make photographies to build an iconology of Alentejo like Aby Moritz Warburg.

W R I T T I N G

Manuel de coexistence ( Frédérique Barchelard, 2011 )

P H O T O G R A P H Y

California City ( Camille Ayme, 2010 )

I L L U S T R A T I O N S

Home, n째2 ( Margaux Parillaud, 2011 )

C O L L A G E

Post Palace ( Boris Lesouëf, 2011 )

D R A W I N G

Cinéma du réel ( Clément Lobbens, 2013 )

C O L L E C T I O N

Mnemosyne-Atlas, (1924-1929 · Aby M. Warburg) Abraham Moritz Warburg, known as Aby Warburg (June 13, 1866 – October 26, 1929), was a German art historian and cultural theorist who founded a private Library for Cultural Studies, the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg, later Warburg Institute. At the heart of his research was the legacy of the Classical World, and the transmission of classical representation, in the most varied areas of western culture through to the Renaissance.

Warburg described himself as: Amburghese di cuore, ebreo di sangue, d’anima Fiorentino (Hamburger at heart, Jew by blood, Florentine in spirit)

We stay available for any complementary informations postmarble@gmail.com

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2013 Lisbon Architecture Triennale

mai 2013 © Co.

Associated Projects BEYOND THE ORNAMENT History and tales of Alentejo’s marbles