To liven up a drab neighborhood, the architects created a colorful pergola for the station, inspired by the decorative patterns of the various African migrants who live in the area.
The initiative is part of a broader initiative in Paris that will extend the city’s subway lines to better link the suburbs to the center, “to make them feel more connected,” said Benedetta Tagliabue, a partner at EMBT. It will return to Chile after the Biennale, and talks will be staged there instead, Aravena said.Ī more traditional urban planning project comes from EMBT, a Barcelona-based studio, exhibiting scale models for the redevelopment of a neighborhood in Clichy-sous-Bois, near Paris, including plans for collective housing, a market and a subway station. Had it not been for the pandemic, representatives for the two sides would have met at the Biennale - “a neutral territory,” Aravena said - for negotiations inside the structure. It was commissioned by a Mapuche territorial organization as part of a rapprochement process between the group and a forest company in conflict over shared land. “ Elemental,” an initiative spearheaded by the Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena, is a striking structure of tall poles arranged in a circle that evokes a Koyauwe, or a place to parley and resolve conflicts among the Mapuche, an Indigenous population of Chile.