Ball Theater
Sound, fiction, occupation
In May 2023, performers paraded and danced in the middle of a steel structure, a half-sphere offered up as a theatre, for the inauguration of the French pavilion at the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale. The event made quite an impression, but did we really understand what was at stake for the curators, studio Muoto (Gilles Delalex, Yves Moreau) and architect Georgi Stanishev? “We wanted to imagine an architecture that shapes us, but that we also shape in return through our occupations,” they reply. In order to give substance to the intentions of the curators and to highlight the occupations of the pavilion, L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui is pleased to publish this special issue about Radio Utopia, one of the “balls” organised at the French pavilion, and dedicated to sound. Five days of recordings in August 2023 made use of this structure, reminding us that “there is no celebration without music, dance or shouted expressions of joy”, as Carlotta Darò and Nicolas Tixier, the instigators of this “sound laboratory”, write. Sound, fiction and occupation all come together in these 64 pages, along with philosophy, music and, as always, celebration.
