In the framework of the exhibition pre-architectures, Sébastien Marot presents his new book Prendre la clef des champs - Agriculture et architecture. He explores two complementary domestication practices that emerged around 10,000 years ago: agriculture and architecture. In the contemporary context of ecological impasse, no sensible reflection can be developed on the future of architecture and agriculture until they are reconnected and fundamentally rethought in conjunction with each other.
Prendre la clef des champs - Agriculture et architecture consists of 56 short chapters, organized into 8 thematic sections. They represent a jurisprudence of ideas, episodes and landmarks that provide a framework for reflection on the relationship between agriculture and architecture and its historical evolution. This historical recapitulation attempts to synthesize in four large panoramic drawings, the competing directions that the town/country, agriculture/architecture dialectic seems likely to take today.
BOOK HERE
Throughout his extensive career as a researcher, Sébastien Marot’s interest focused on contemporary architectural theory, urban design and landscaping, an interest that has recently centred on rural areas. In 2019 he curated the exhibition Taking the Country's Side: Agriculture and Architecture for the Lisbon Architecture Triennial. He is currently a professor at the École d’Architecture in Paris-Est and teaches classes as a visiting professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale in Lausanne and the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he participates in a programme on the conceptualisation and design of rural spaces.
He was editor-in-chief of Le Visiteur magazine and since 2010 he has been the editor of Marnes: documents d’architecture. He is also the author of a large number of publications dedicated to critical thinking on urbanism and cities, such as Sub-Urbanism and the Art of Memory (AA Publications 2003), which has been translated into several languages, and the reissue of the legendary manifesto by Oswald Mathias Ungers and Rem Koolhaas The City in the City: Berlin, A Green Archipelago (Lars Müller 2013).
