Model Citysecretly this area seems to be functioning as a critical model, a monument. Not only as a memory for an architectural practice but by 'just being there', la cite des ingenieurs represents a way of thinking and acting, in the flow of time, incorporating, in a sense, all these different layers of the nature of its idealism, history, life and critique. Projecting the architecture of the 'cite des ingenieurs' in a model, it will, ideally, function as a platform, as a discursive piece, as a tool which might generate reflection on the different issues that can be found in these layers.
Being disguised as an architectural form, it raises questions about the nature of living, about institutionalization, about 'capitalistic economic space' and about the public and private sphere. Now that is impossible to live there or to make these houses productive in any other way, this model takes a critical status, by placing memory back in the archive of knowledge again, using the space of this model as a vehicle for recovering and tracing this memory.
Model CityA model is normally preceding the architectural reality, to give a preview, and to create a thinking model of how to organize public space, as a model for imagination. This model however is functioning the other way around, by providing procedures of rethinking reality that is almost disappearing, in order to allow us to rethink the future.
Model City is accompanied by a 'boite des idees', both on the website of the FRAC in Dunkerque (where the piece was shown and conceived for) and in the exhibition, for contributions on questions the project is focusing on: the dynamics of the changing use of architecture, should it be re-used at all, what happens to the underlaying ideas, how can new ideas and initiatives relate to history and heritage - and should they do so?