Transformation of buildings: heritage stake or public utility issue?

Is the transformation of buildings a heritage issue or a public utility issue related to the re-employment of resources?

A conference of François Chatillon,

Architect responsible for the historical monuments of France

As part of its academic year, the Executive Master in Architectural Heritage (ULB-VUB) invites you to meet François Chatillon.

“Preserve to create – consider the past as a driving force for the creation”

For François Chatillon it comes to watching the world as it is: a legacy of the past that we must accept as part of our present in order to project oneself from this reality. It does not imply that everything deserves posterity; every era, every civilisation produces following its own criteria work that will migrate from memory to oblivion. The work of the architect is then always a work of transformation situated between two poles: memory and oblivion, construction and demolition. The tabula rasa has never existed, even though it was claimed, there has always been something existing to be transformed. The choice of the architect is resumed in “how”.

The buildings have more than a containing function. They have a symbolic value, of employment and aesthetic. The architecture deals with a stress field and standards which are part of it. The problem with the norm is that her life is very short. François Chatillon has not always worked on heritage, but within the existing, his liberty lies in the constraint. And the subjugation of the constraint sets him free.

Tuesday 12 November 2019, 18.30 p.m.
Studio 1 Flagey - Place Eugène Flagey 18, 1050 Ixelles.