Les Tours de Babel

The town of Azay-le-Rideau is hosting a busy program of events and exhibitions around the Frac Centre-Val de Loire collection for the second edition of the Biennale.

Summer and autumn in the village will see a temporary exhibition on the theme of solitude, a permanent exhibition housed in a school, a workshop with students from the École d’Architecture de la Ville & des Territoires Paris-Est, and conferences and temporary loans. On display in the Salle des Halles (old market hall), the temporary exhibition brings together a series of architectural plans for towers dating from between 1950 and the present moment. Developing into a forceful architectural motif in the late-nineteenth century United States, the tower recreates the myth of Babel, of Icarus attempting to reach the sun. Each strives to create a world that is more elevated, more original and ultimately more ideal than the last, this competition resulting only in a landscape of discrete solitudes. While towers remain a symbol of modernity and power, many contemporary architects have seized upon this type of architecture to critically engage with new building techniques and new forms of dwelling.