Art Of The Day Weekly

#343 - from 24 April 2014 to 30 April 2014


A team of camouflage experts at work at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, USA. Illustration in Modern Camouflage by Robert P. Breckenridge © DR

War and architecture

PARIS – One often feels that wars automatically put architects to rest. It was exactly the contrary during World War II, according to the curator of this exhibition, Jean-Louis Cohen. The dimension of the conflict made it mandatory to build different facilities at an increased speed, whether it was lines of fortifications, weapon factories, shelters for the civilians, dismountable barracks, military headquarters, prisoner camps, as well as the Nazi extermination camps. War favoured the search for innovating materials, and even before the end of hostilities, it pushed some to work on reconstruction. By pushing this thought further, one could almost demonstrate that all architecture after the war is simply the application of this research in time of peace. The exhibition looks into destructions (the specific assessment written up by Doxiadis on the damage caused to Greece) as well as into the solutions of construction in an autocratic economy (the Murondin houses by Le Corbusier, who flirted with the regime in Vichy) or the iconic projects of the time, such as the Pentagone in Washington D.C.
Architecture en uniforme, projeter et construire pour la Seconde Guerre mondiale at the Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine, from 24 April to 8 Septembre 2014.

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