The Braillard Architects Foundation (FBA) celebrated its 30th anniversary by organising an event oriented towards the future. To follow the visionary line of its founders, it prepared a round table with a certain number of personalities from political, scientific, artistic and professional circles to discuss the future of the Greater Geneva in the perspective of its ecological transition.
The round table took place on the occasion of the European Heritage Days, devoted this year to places of power. It was purposely held in the building of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), designed by Pierre Braillard and completed in 1978. The Foundation thus intends to symbolically draw from its roots to better scrutinise the future, convinced that intellectual creation is a power with the rights of citizenship and promotion. The organisation of these exchanges between architecture, territory, politics and citizenship in this emblematic place of the international Geneva was an opportunity to demonstrate this in the presence of a large audience.
The Greater Geneva has been building its foundations for over a decade now. With the launching of projects such as the Lake Geneva express, cross-border trams and the multiplicity of ongoing housing projects in centralities now accessible by public transport, this territory started optimising its operating conditions. This is indeed essential!
But what about tomorrow? What should the next steps be? How to implement the recent citizen’s decision on the 2050 energy strategy and, more generally, on the ecological transition? How to work with the multiplicity of origins so that everyone finds their place in common spaces? How to reconfigure the qualities of a city to make people want to save resources?
The round table of September 9th explored all these questions – and more – that are resolutely forward-looking.
Programme
- Welcome speech
Isabelle Boutillon, Director of the WIPO Premises Infrastructure Division - 30 years of the Braillard Architects Foundation
Panos Mantziaras, Director of the Braillard Architects Foundation - Design the space of change: The Braillard architects in Geneva
Elena Cogato Lanza, President Board of the Braillard Architects Foundation,
teaching and research master, EPFL - ROUND TABLE
Facilitated by Michèle Tranda-Pittion, architect town planner (FSU) - Opening
Sylvain Ferretti, Secretary-general of the Office of urbanism Geneva (DALE) - Territory players
Frédéric Bessat, Greater Geneva, French project coordinator, director of the Metropolitan pole
Etienne Blanc, 1st vice-president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, Mayor of Divonne
Tarramo Broennimann, president of the Federation of Swiss Architects (FSA-Geneva)
Robert Cramer, president of the Patrimoine Suisse Genève, State Councilor
Arnaud Dutheil, director of the CAUE 74
Myriam Constantin, Agglomeration forum of the Greater Geneva
Joëlle Kuntz, journalist specialising in International Geneva
Sandra Robyr, president of the Swiss Urbanist Federation (FSU-Romande) - The invited players
Ruedi Baur, artist and designer, professor at HEAD
Alexander Federau, philosopher and physician, scientific collaborator, Faculty of Geosciences and Environment, UNIL
Bertrand Lemoine, former secretary-general of the International workshop of the Greater Paris
Anne Pons, director-general of the Agency of development and urbanism
of Strasbourg - Synthesis
Panos Mantziaras, Director of the Braillard Architects Foundation