Shigeru Ban & Jean de Gastines

Rêver la ville idéale [Dreaming the Ideal City] is a workshop conceived by the architects of the Centre Pompidou-Metz, which offers in the PTS, the museum’s architectural laboratory at the time of its creation, a space open to all, where everyone can take part in the elaboration of a common work: an ideal city made of recyclable cardboard.

Inside the newly refurbished structure with a long honeycomb table, lights and seats that echo the codes of the Centre Pompidou-Metz’s emblematic architecture, visitors are invited to take hold of and divert the material at their disposal to build a large city that will gradually occupy the entire space.

The spirit of the proposal refers to Shigeru Ban’s practice, which is based on innovative structures made of paper or cardboard tubes, thanks to which he creates temporary prefabricated habitats to respond to the emergency situations of populations deprived of housing following disasters, as recently in Ukraine.

In the evening, the PTS lives on. Once the public has left, a red light gradually invades the space. To the rhythm of a heartbeat, a coloured movement is then perceptible from the outside, through the portholes.

Visitors can also discover, or rediscover, the different stages of the Centre Pompidou-Metz construction project through the architects’ models shown in the Foyer.