“Roof on Roof”, one roof gets swapped for another, a new roof replaces an older one, an extra storey, an increase in height, additional square footage, new spaces, a hidden garden, wind turbines, an unexpected living space, an exciting panorama of the city from on high, a connection with the sky...Roofs have a great capacity for rounding off a city and making it “happier”.
Buildings in Paris have been getting taller for centuries. The city was contained for a long time within a series of enclosures and until the beginning of the twentieth century managed to develop by progressively increasing the height of existing buildings. This practice was brought to an end with the introduction, principally for aesthetic and health reasons, of building regulations. Recently, however, the raising and altering of rooftops has become a subject of discussion again, regulations are being overturned and there is a real possibility that the rooftop landscapes of Paris will be transformed over the coming years.
This exhibition has been curated by the Paris-Malaquais National School of Architecture-Ecole nationale supérieure d’architecture Paris-Malaquais -, the laboratory of “Architecture, Culture and Society from the XIXth-XXIst centuries" (CNRS / UMR 3329)-and the Paris Urbanism Agency. It brings historical, scientific and forward-looking ideas together with the aim of exploring the potential of this fifth façade. From the Duflot law on building height to questions posed by the Greater Paris Gamble-le Grand Paris-, via the development of new uses for rooftops, roofs and the way they could be altered have become an important topic not only architecturally but also socially and in the fields of urbanism and energy.
Coming up>> In September (2014), a series of conferences on three dates and in three venues will close the exhibition