BIENNIAL PROJECT
I see Paris, I see France
The De Beistegui Apartment in Paris was a rooftop penthouse designed and completed in 1931 by Le Corbusier for local playboy Charles de Beistegui. While in some ways a feat of modernism in the sky, the space itself was designed with several strange characteristics. First, it was not wired for any electrical lighting leaving only candles for illumination. Second, it included a built-in periscope with which to view the city. Third, a series of hedges as well as interior walls were designed to slide and reposition using electrical motors. And fourth, the highest point of the rooftop garden was a small, square, walled room with wall heights that hid what would have been an unobstructed view of the Parisian skyline. The apartment no longer exists. Left behind are only a handful of images. The limited photography and the oblique views that are captured of the space leave the De Beistegui Apartment a palimpsest onto which new architectural narratives can be written. The framing of the view allows for multiple fictions about what remains unseen. A magic scale shift occurs beyond the walls that transforms the distant monuments of the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower into small objects.
BIO
WELCOMEPROJECTS is a practice of discursive sensibilities focused on the production of real things in the world along with all the incumbent, critical fictions needed for their survival. They design projects large (buildings, houses, interiors), medium (installations, films, furniture) and small (handbags, games, wagons) imbuing each with curiosity and playful seriousness. WELCOMEPROJECTS is directed by Laurel Consuelo Broughton: a designer and academic in Los Angeles.
