PROFILES

Bastien Foucard won an ArchiCOTE 2017 Prize and recently joined forces with architect Philippe Caron, who shares his ideas of what building is about.

Why architecture?
Bastien Foucard: Initially I was attracted because it's a profession that embraces several disciplines – design, technical knowledge – and involves habitat, meaning it concerns all of us, all the time. Practising this profession demands both objectivity and considerable engagement, plus of course immense responsibility.  It was that all-encompassing vision that spoke volumes to me. We architects aren't exactly public figures but we work with the public.

So a contemporary vision?
BF: I'm not sure the word contemporary still carries much meaning. We're constantly calling that kind of conditioning into question conditioning we have given ourselves but that comes too from our culture and experience. Taking  a step back needs  to become a reflex.

Moving out of one's comfort zone?
BF: Obviously. So if you ask me what I think contemporary architecture is, the only answer I can give you is:
"I no longer know." Or if I'm forced to clarify my thinking, I believe truly contemporary architecture isn't a style, it's about delivering a meaningful response in the highly complex context of a specific commission.
Philippe Caron: We have a habit of pitting regionalism against contemporary. In fact there's simply good or bad architecture, nothing more. And above all, before a commission there's a location. Building a Riviera-style villa out in the country is stupid; building a Riviera villa on Cap d’Antibes isn't totally ridiculous. But there's never a definitive answer either, there's a correlation at a specific moment between the end-user, their desires and the location.

So is the design basically an accessory?
BF: Not at all; it's the subtlety of the design that's important. When I finished college I had a very contemporary mindset with a strong penchant for almost minimalist lines. Now, having seen all those little cliché houses springing up all over the place, even in the countryside, I feel it's mimicry only just short of vulgarity.
PC: From an intellectual viewpoint, it may be very valorising to design extremely graphic things, but architecture isn't about producing artworks. It isn't painting or sculpture, it's public, it's functional, it's intended for people. Nowadays the trend for contemporary is rather too systematic and not always well mastered.

Is it perhaps a counter-reaction to a tendency to over-regionalise?
PC: Yes, and which has unfortunately been completely subverted, giving us pseudo-Provençal and neoclassical. We've larded the countryside with anything, anywhere. But there have been excesses on both sides, with contemporary projects being imposed solely to satisfy certain architects' egos. Architecture isn't to be seen, it's to be lived. That view radically changes the conceptual approach to everything you're going to build.
BF: Architecture is creating a home for living in, not statuary. It's very subtle and you have to tackle the act of building
as a formative part  of the environment, by creating perfectly and sensitively integrated homes that valorise and respect the setting rather than a building.

Par Alexandre Benoist