Architectures du quotidien: 150 Years of Artist's Atelier
In 2025, Atelier 11 —the last active artist studio of La Cité Falguière— celebrates its 150th anniversary. As part of the National Architecture Days with the theme Architectures du quotidien / Architecture of the Everyday, we reflect on how the daily life of an artist’s studio becomes part of our architectural and cultural heritage, while remaining a vital site of contemporary creation within urban life.
Open Studio, Exhibition, Performance...
October 17 & 18 from 2 pm to 7 pm
October 16 - School visits by appointment
Atelier 11 Cité Falguière, 75015 Paris
Open Studio, Exhibition, Performance...
October 17 & 18 from 2 pm to 7 pm
October 16 - School visits by appointment
Atelier 11 Cité Falguière, 75015 Paris
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You are invited to discover a typical 19th-century atelier, designed as a place of life, work, and intercultural exchange. Built by artists for artists in 1875, Atelier 11 has witnessed more than 150 years of daily life and creation, surviving two world wars and remaining intact despite decades of urban renewal. French artists Joseph Bernard and Paul Gauguin were among its first inhabitants, followed by generations of international artists drawn to Paris and its freedom of creation, such as Modigliani, Soutine, Brancusi, Foujita, and more recently Mira Maodus (from 1979 to 2021).
The ongoing artistic inhabitation of the Cité Falguière makes Atelier 11 one of the oldest international artists’ residencies in the world, today operating as an International Arts Research Residency that hosts artists and cultural professionals from around the globe. Selected by Mission Patrimoine in 2022 and recognized with the Label Patrimoine d’intérêt régional in 2023, Atelier 11 stands as an irreplaceable testimony to the artist’s studio—exemplifying how heritage can evolve in the everyday, continuing throughout three centuries, while adapting to social change and new artistic realities.
Join us to experience the vibrant legacy of the École de Paris while exploring the work of contemporary artists interacting with this recently recognized heritage site—soon to be reimagined by a transatlantic team of architects.
The ongoing artistic inhabitation of the Cité Falguière makes Atelier 11 one of the oldest international artists’ residencies in the world, today operating as an International Arts Research Residency that hosts artists and cultural professionals from around the globe. Selected by Mission Patrimoine in 2022 and recognized with the Label Patrimoine d’intérêt régional in 2023, Atelier 11 stands as an irreplaceable testimony to the artist’s studio—exemplifying how heritage can evolve in the everyday, continuing throughout three centuries, while adapting to social change and new artistic realities.
Join us to experience the vibrant legacy of the École de Paris while exploring the work of contemporary artists interacting with this recently recognized heritage site—soon to be reimagined by a transatlantic team of architects.
PROGRAM
Things are alive. I know this because I speak to them, and they answer back
Open Studio and Installation by Solana Tixi (Argentina)
Open Studio and Installation by Solana Tixi (Argentina)
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“They say one shouldn’t keep too many mirrors in a house because they retain the memory of everything they reflect. I believe spaces hold memory in much the same way. They absorb the energy of those who pass through them. I imagine Atelier 11 as a space full of time and traces—a place that has held many gestures, many voices. I want to explore time through its surfaces, using its worn and peeling walls as a kind of ground for the work. What do the walls reveal when one listens through touch? What happens when we press, rub, trace? How does the identity of a space remain intact, even as it responds to those who inhabit it? And how will it shape us in return?"
The Atelier 11’s resident, an argentinian visual artist and writer, Solana Tixi, will try to address these questions using graphite and pigment to imprint the landscape of the atelier onto fabric. Visitors are invited to walk among the suspended textiles—like moving through a second skin—until they arrive at the original surface, where wall and memory meet. |
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Black Holes Ain’t So Black
Installation by Mario Gooden (USA)
Cultural practice architect and Professor at Columbia GSAPP, Mario Gooden, will present his latest work Black Holes Ain’t So Black developed during his research residency at Atelier 11.
Installation by Mario Gooden (USA)
Cultural practice architect and Professor at Columbia GSAPP, Mario Gooden, will present his latest work Black Holes Ain’t So Black developed during his research residency at Atelier 11.
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In A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes (Bantam, 1998), theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking defines a black hole as the set of cosmological events from which it is not possible to escape to a large distance. Furthermore, the edge of a black hole, the event horizon, is comprised of the four-dimensional space-time light rays that forever hover on this edge yet fail to get away.
Hawking explains, “It is a bit like running away from the police and just managing to keep one step ahead but not being able to get clear away!” At the present planetary reckoning of Black, brown, and Indigenous people of color with the forces of systemic oppression, Hawking’s description takes on particular resonance. |
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Enacting feminist theorist Tina Campt’s concept of “practicing refusal,” Black Holes Ain’t So Black uses juxtaposition and collage of archival images, film, and video, in a three-channel video installation to enact the spatial praxes of liberation of historic and contemporary Black life and architecture.
A Cube as a Line
Installation by Sandra Peters (Germany / UAE)
Installation by Sandra Peters (Germany / UAE)
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Our special guest, Sandra Peters, a sculptor and professor at New York University Abu Dhabi, will introduce her artistic practice based on observations related to architecture and urban environments. For Peters, it is as important to observe everyday urban surroundings as it is to study the art, artifacts, and architecture of previous decades and diverse origins. She is particularly intrigued by artistic practices that express an inherent structure or 'grammar' that conveys meaning through its form, while also engaging and appealing to the body and its senses.
In her presentation, she will showcase her recent sculpture titled A CUBE AS A LINE (2025), related to the 11 possibilities to unfold a cube. While cube sides are typically represented as firm, flat surfaces, she became interested in using fabric as a soft, pliable material with zippers at the edges to allow the cube to be opened and closed. In a three-dimensional representation, the corners and edges of a cube correspond to the demarcation lines of the architecture. By choosing a pliable material, the artist aims to change the perception of the object's geometry and its relationship to both the viewer and the surrounding space. |
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Aligned with the Cube
Performance by Hiie Saumaa (Estonia / France) and Christopher Brooks (USA)
Saturday, October 18 starting at 17h, followed by a talk and a Q&A session with the artists
On Saturday, somatic movement artist Hiie Saumaa and violinist Christopher Brooks will interact with the Atelier and the installations to explore the questions:
Performance by Hiie Saumaa (Estonia / France) and Christopher Brooks (USA)
Saturday, October 18 starting at 17h, followed by a talk and a Q&A session with the artists
On Saturday, somatic movement artist Hiie Saumaa and violinist Christopher Brooks will interact with the Atelier and the installations to explore the questions:
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What happens if the moving, sensing, listening human body steps into an artistic conversation with inanimate architectural spaces and objects?
What emerges out of this interaction? Who leads whom and who follows whom? Does anything transform in the performers or the audience as a result of this interaction? Do we see the object or ourselves differently? By extension, could some of our everyday interactions with objects and spaces become more animated, soulful, and artistic? |
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Atelier 11 Restoration Project
As part of the National Architecture Days, you will also have an opportunity to discover the architectural project, featuring a 3D animation of the future Atelier 11 developed by transatlantic team of architects: gh3*, TNT Architecture, Studio Gang, FREAKS and Fondation du Patrimoine, in close collaboration with artists and cultural professionals. We invite you to support the preservation of this architectural heritage and help us adapt the historic artist’s studio to today’s environmental and artistic realities. |
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This event is organized in partnership with the Fonds d’Art Contemporain - Paris Collections, which holds works by more than 30 artists who lived and worked at Cité Falguière throughout the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. We will present a work from the Paris collections, a painting titled “Sauzon, Belle-Isle” by Lilian de Glehn Thibaut (1872-1951), an English painter who worked at Cité Falguière during the roaring twenties.
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