Sophie Dars/Carlo Menon: winners of the Académie's architecture competition

Congratulations to Sophie Dars who, together with Carlo Menon, won the Charles Abella prize in the Académie des Beaux-Arts' new architecture competition, awarded on 13 December.

Their project, which won an award for this competition on the theme of "Ecritures", is entitled "Magasin/Magazine". The aim is to transform a rural building in Parfondeval into a place of residence, study, celebration and transmission of knowledge. Through a succession of specific architectural interventions, based on one-off collaborations that mobilise different sensibilities, materials, knowledge and know-how, like the contents of a magazine, this site becomes a privileged terrain for inventing other ways of writing architecture. This approach breaks with the modern heritage of the architect as author, in favour of the figure of the architect as editor, to give substance to a practice that is resolutely collective, hybrid and carnal. Sophie Dars and Carlo Menon raise the following question: can a physical place itself be a magazine?

The 4 finalist projects are on show until 31 January as part of the "Emulations" exhibition at the Pavillon Comtesse de Caen, Palais de l'Institut de France (free admission).