Orléans Architecture Biennale Honors Patrick Bouchain and Guy Rottier

The first Architecture Biennale of Orléans features two major retrospectives dedicated to Patrick Bouchain and Guy Rottier, both pioneers of experimental and socially engaged architecture. Bouchain's exhibition at the Frac Centre-Val de Loire celebrates his fifty-year career, marked by the recent acquisition of his entire archive by the institution. His work, rooted in the French Communist Party, includes projects like the Grange au Lac in Évian and the Lieu Unique in Nantes. Bouchain advocates for flexible, multifunctional spaces and open construction sites involving citizens, sociologists, and artists. His notebooks, displayed for the first time, reveal a creative method inspired by nomadic Tuareg tents and African architecture. Bouchain's principles influenced French law 2016-925, which allows exemptions from building constraints. Meanwhile, Guy Rottier's retrospective at Les Tanneries – Centre d’art contemporain in Amilly gathers fifty pieces spanning six decades. Rottier, a pioneer of energy-efficient design, developed the "lumiducts" with physicist Maurice Touchais to channel sunlight into buildings. His visionary projects include the solar city Ecopolis (1970) and the rotating Maison éolienne (1979), a political statement against restrictive building codes. Both exhibitions run until April 1, 2018.