PARIS GALAXIES
a Vision for the Greater Paris
 Future research about the making of the Great Paris in 2030

 An experimental project developed by LIID, attached to Institute ACTE (Sorbonne University),
awarded the Paris 2030 research grant (City of Paris)
in collaboration with Paris College of Art and emerging actors of the creative metropolis.
Imaginary landscape of the Grand-Parisian urban Galaxy (“conceptual sky”)

The idea of seeing the city, and particularly the Greater Paris area as a galaxy is the result of different approaches, theoretical, abstract or poetic as much as historical and concrete… A full sky of thoughts !

 

"Les mots du Ciel de Paris Galaxies", © Raphaële Bidault-Waddington, LIID

“The words of the sky” (of Paris Galaxies), © Raphaële Bidault-Waddington, LIID

 

MANY REASONS TO SEE THE GREATER PARIS AS A GALAXY OF URBAN GALAXIES:

- Paris is structured according to a Haussmanian urban plan, a fabric of boulevards, crossroads and star-shaped plazas, of which the Place de l’Etoile is the ultimate example. The concept of the “Greater Paris galaxy” offers the possibility of reorganizing and broadening the fundamental structure of the Capital beyond its Boulevard Péripherique.

 

- Paris Galaxies, an expansive, multicolored, interlaced, luminescent fabric composed of bright, colorful dots, layers and filaments, dispatches the concentrated energy of “Paris, City of Lights” that was eclipsing its periphery like a ancient solar system.

 

- Paris Galaxies revives the glitter of its past grandeur stirring the tipsy emotions of an Art World Capital, morphed into a vast, intelligent and inventive city, enlightened and festive, creative and connected, in which each neighborhood has its own story.

 

- Beyond the Greater Paris area, the galaxy model enables a simple mental and visual representation: the idea of a multipolar complex environment composed of dynamic and interdependent elements specific to great metropolises.

 

- The symbol of the galaxy enables the introduction of other dimensions above the zenithal map habitually used, for representing the less visible layers of the city: its fabric of interactions, its lifestyle, and its mental and virtual spaces.

 

- This virtual space, the online life of the metropolis, with its satellites dispersed at the other end of the world also find their place naturally in this holistic vision the Global City transformed into an urban galaxy.

 

- The urban galaxy makes relations, kinships, distances and proximity visible between neighborhoods, forming the cluster of a galaxy, like a patchwork of eclectic patterns revealing recurring themes and singularities.

 

- For instance, Marne-La-Vallée and La Défense are far apart in the Greater Paris area, yet very close for other reasons as they fit similar urban profiles and patterns.

 

- The galaxy emancipates the city from its original tangible framework, making it more intelligent and expressive.

 

- The galaxy conjures up something fun, futuristic, spontaneously inspiring imaginary and future projections beyond reality, revealing the realm of infinite possibilities, spurring dreams, as the cosmos hosts our fantasies since the beginning of time.

 

- The urban galaxy preserves the mysteries and the memories of the city, hidden in its black holes and its black matter like a fertile palimpseste, exalting the imagination to become the ideal ground for all our projects.

 

- Paris Galaxies seeks to reveal the creative energy of the Greater Paris area.