In keeping with the eco-conscious ethos of the 2024 Paris Olympics, just a handful of permanent structures were purpose-built for this year’s games. But even so, the event has provided a platform for architectural exploration. In November 2022, in preparation for the games, the Ministry of Culture and French Olympic Committee enlisted students at architecture and landscape design schools across the country to design a series of 20 ephemeral pavilions in Parc de La Villette. The resulting exhibition, dubbed Archi-Folies, was inaugurated in early July. After taking a hiatus to host the sports federations of Club France during the Olympic Games, the pavilions will open to the public once again on August 28.
Designed by French architect Bernard Tschumi (who sponsored the Archi-Folies initiative), Parc De La Villette has a long-standing reputation for experimental architecture, as one of the formative works of the deconstructivist movement. Tschumi won the competition for the park’s design in 1982, responding to a brief to transform the 50-hectare industrial area, then occupied by abattoirs, into a thriving cultural hub. His winning scheme leveraged points, lines and surfaces as organizing elements (the surfaces being programmed areas and the lines being the overlying grid that connects them), translating the “rhizome” theory developed by Deleuze and Guattari into a spatial plan that offers freedom of circulation, with multiple connections between any two points, while also referencing the work of constructivist artists like Wassily Kandinsky.
As for the points, they took the form of 26 individually designed “folies”: bright red landmarks situated on the grid that help visitors orient themselves within the park. As a typology, follies typically exist only as objects, with their sole purpose being visual delight, though some of the structures now have prescribed uses, such as cafes or ticketing or lookout points. While their consistent design language fosters a sense of cohesion, the intentionally disjointed scheme was intended to create unexpected tensions that allowed users to define their own relationship to the urban space. In other words, it was an opportunity for Tschumi to rethink what a park could be.
The Archi-Folies’ similarity in size and scale puts them in natural dialogue with Tschumi’s structures. Unlike the original follies, however, the new pavilions have both an intended meaning and a clear use. Each team of 15 students, supervised by their professors, partnered with one of France’s athletic federations to create a functional space to celebrate medal-winning athletes and host sports demonstrations, whose design would also represent its respective sport. There were a few stipulations: Each school was allotted an 11.25 x 11.25-metre plot to design within (situated along one of two structuring axes of the park), and the pavilion had to be made of sustainable materials that could be recycled and repurposed at the end of the Games.
Students oversaw each phase, from fundraising to design to construction. In July 2023, they presented their sketches and models at ENSA Paris-Malaquais for public consultation (and feedback from Tschumi himself). These models were used to determine the exact placement of the pavilions on the site. After a nearly two-year design process, the structures were prefabricated off-site and then assembled by the students in just 9 days.
Some student groups took a more literal design approach: Pavilion 1, designed by ENSA Paris-Est for the mountain and climbing federation, features an 11-metre climbing wall, while Pavilion 5 by ENSA Marseille aptly draws from boat construction to honour the sailing federation. Made of stacked bales of straw, the circular equestrian pavilion (designed by ENSA Versailles) is equally on the nose.
Other projects translated their respective sports into geometric forms. Students at ENSA Strasbourg, for instance, conceived a triangulated wood and zinc roof for the triathlon pavilion to represent the three disciplines of the Olympic sport. The rowing pavilion by ENSA Nancy, meanwhile, boasts an angular solid wood structure designed using advanced digital modelling. Its posts are meant to resemble a skiff, while the overall form seeks to embody the gesture of rowers in motion. Its translucent roof lets the structure shine and also creates the illusion of an open-air space. Though the pavilion remains fully open, its design can accommodate exterior walls, allowing it to take on new uses throughout the year.
For Pavilion 9, dedicated to the cycling federation, students at ENSA Clermont-Ferrand were inspired by the geometry of a bicycle. Using local materials from their region (solid Douglas fir lattices and perforated canvases for sun protection), the students left the structure exposed, its trussed roof evoking spokes and the circular room at the centre (which hosts an exhibition) recalling the form of a wheel; the twelve support posts are weighted with massive volcanic stones.
Many of the Archi-Folies leaned heavily on symbolism. With its stark white structure and blue accents, the paddle sports pavilion by ENSA Grenoble stands out against the park’s greenery. Designed to evoke the movement of water, a perforated pre-lacquered aluminum screen around the perimeter recalls the trail of bubbles left in a boat’s wake, while the dappled light it filters in mirrors the magic of reflections on the water’s surface; a series of “portholes” curate views from outside in and vice versa. Inside, an exhibition explores the history of the sport as well as associated environmental issues.
For the archery pavilion, ENSA Brittany looked back to the sport’s roots, modelling the space’s design after vernacular architecture, namely outdoor archery shelters. Comprised of three wooden volumes around a central covered space, all clad in cork, the pavilion has been designed to utilize minimal materials. The floor is made from recycled concrete slabs, while select walls made of woven rope nod to the materiality of bowstrings.
Finally, the gymnastics and dance pavilions, designed by ENSA Saint-Étienne and ENSA Lyon respectively, seek to manifest a sense of movement. The latter takes the form of a cube, made of wood assembled using a tongue and groove system without screws or nails. The students then used a software to generate an algorithm that analyzed the precise movements of breakdancers in action and used it to carve out a curved pathway through the structure. The grey linoleum dance floor was reused from a former project.
As for the gymnastics pavilion, its circular form is hemmed in by trampoline mats, and its base is covered in floor mats of various sizes. An undulating ribbon of solid wood wraps around the space, not only serving as bench seating but also evoking the same dynamic quality of a tumbling pass. “Architecture and sports have one thing in common,” says Tschumi, “the celebration of the movement of bodies in space.”
Lead image by Aurélien Chen: Pavilion 01, Ascension by ENSA Paris-Est, sits adjacent Folie N4 which currently houses *DUUU, an artist radio station.
Running from August 28 to September 3, the Archi-Folies exhibition will showcase 20 sustainable, student-designed pavilions.