« Natural History of Architecture » exhibition by Philippe Rahm at Pavillon de l’Arsenal

The Natural History of Architecture highlights the natural, physical, biological and climatic causes that have influenced the course of architectural history and caused its figures to emerge, from prehistory until today.

« Natural History of Architecture » exhibition view at Pavillon de l’Arsenal© Salem Mostefaoui

Induced within a context of massive and easy access to energy, that of coal followed by oil, and by the progress of medicine (with the invention of vaccines and antibiotics), political, social and cultural historiography in the twentieth century has largely ignored the physical, geographical, climatic and bacteriological facts which have decisively shaped architectural and urban forms throughout the centuries.


Practical information

« Natural History of Architecture. How Climate, Epidemics and Energy have shaped our Cities and Buildings »
October 24, 2021 – September 19, 2021
Pavillon de l’Arsenal
21 Boulevard Morland, Paris
France



Rereading the history of architecture based on these real, objective and material data will help us face the major environmental challenges of our century and build in a better way in response to climate urgency. The history of architecture and the city as we’ve known it since the second half of the twentieth century has more often than not been re-examined through the prisms of politics, society and culture, overlooking the physical, climatic and health grounds on which it is based, from city design to building forms.

Architecture arose from the need to create a climate that can maintain our body temperature at 37 °C, raising walls and roofs to provide shelter from the cold or the heat of the sun. Originally, the city was invented as a granaryto store and protect grain. The first architectures reflect available human energy. The fear of stagnant air brought about the great domes of the Renaissance to air out miasmas.

[THE BASILICA, A REFRESHING PUBLIC SPACE] The Pantheon in Rome, commonly referred to as the “Rotonda”, 126 CE. Engraving by Francesco Piranesi, circa 1790. University of Melbourne Library Coll. (Australia), Baillieu Print Collection.
Évolution des premières constructions, des huttes dites « primitives » aux ordres de l’architecture classique. Planche de William Chambers, in A Treatise on Civil Architecture, Londres, 1759, pl. 1. Royal Collection Trust. © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2020

The global cholera epidemic that began in 1816 initiated the major urban transformations of the nineteenth century. The use of white lime, which runs throughout modernity, is above all hygienic. More recently, oil has made it possible to develop cities in the desert… and now, carbon dioxide is driving the architectural discipline to reconstruct its very foundations.

Plan of the E-nun-mah temple of the city of Ur, drawn up by Sir Charles Leonard Woolley, archaeologist in charge of the British excavations carried out between 1922 and 1934. In Ur Excavations, vol. VI: The Buildings of the Third Dynasty, British Museum and University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 1974, pl. 58. Courtesy of the Penn Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. DRDinocrat
Dieppe’s beach and casino, Alexandre Durville, architect. Autotype, 1884. © Historical image collection by Bildagentur-online/Alamy Stock Photo.

The exhibition offers three chronological itineraries in one: the untold history of architecture and cities grounded in natural, energy, or health causes; the development of construction materials; and the development of energies and lighting systems through full-scale objects.

[URBANIZATION THROUGH THE DISCOVERY OF OIL] Oil derrick in Signal Hill (California, US). Photography, circa 1925. City of Signal Hill, California. All rights reserved.
[AIR CONDITIONING ERASES THE IDIOSYNCRATIC FEATURES OF REGIONAL ARCHITECTURE] Aerial view of the city of Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates). Photography circa 1960. Jorge Abud Chami Collection. Courtesy of the Arab Image Foundation.

This new approach, which could be described as an objective one, brings various historical ages closer and forges unexpected links. The secular whiteness of the roofs of Shibām in Yemen resonates with the project of modernity, the invention of the decorative arts with today’s thermal curtains, domes with the ventilation of social housing…Taken together, this brings out the real foundations of the forms, materials and arrangements that are necessary for living purposes, as well as storage, cooling, protection, ventilation, care and so on.

« Natural History of Architecture » exhibition view at Pavillon de l’Arsenal© Salem Mostefaoui
« Natural History of Architecture » exhibition view at Pavillon de l’Arsenal© Salem Mostefaoui

The exhibition and its companion volume, will highlight the natural, physical, biological and climatic causes that have influenced the development of architectural history from prehistory until today, in order to understand how to face the major environmental challenges of our century and build in a better way in response to climate urgency and new health challenges.

« Natural History of Architecture » exhibition view at Pavillon de l’Arsenal© Salem Mostefaoui
« Natural History of Architecture » exhibition view at Pavillon de l’Arsenal© Salem Mostefaoui
« Natural History of Architecture » exhibition view at Pavillon de l’Arsenal© Salem Mostefaoui