{"id":724806,"date":"2026-06-09T08:54:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T08:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/724806\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T08:54:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T08:54:22","slug":"architecture-as-archaeology-2026-dulux-study-tour-paris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/724806\/","title":{"rendered":"Architecture as archaeology: 2026 Dulux Study Tour, Paris"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe really define ourselves as researchers, as well as architects,\u201d architectural designer at Lina Ghotmeh Architecture Rohan Golestani told the six winners of the Australian Institute of Architects\u2019 2026 Dulux Study Tour in the firm\u2019s Paris studio. The practice, famously founded on Ghotmeh\u2019s desire to approach architecture as \u201carchaeology of the future<\/a>,\u201d follows on from her longstanding interest in archaeology, and a motivation to create memorable and site-specific architecture emerging from a close historical reading of place and environment. It is a fitting framework through which to view Paris, a city layered with many built histories, particularly as it evolves to meet the demands of climate change, population growth and the conservation of its heritage.<\/p>\n

Paris is perhaps best understood as a palimpsest \u2013 a record of iterative inscriptions, erasures and revisions made in urban fabric. Each significant rewriting of the city\u2019s form can be traced to events of social, political, economic and technological revolution.<\/p>\n

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On a cycling tour northward from the riverbank of the Seine, tour guide and architect Catherine Haas explained how Paris had originated as a small Gallic settlement, expanding radially outward with the establishment of successive city walls, each serving a specific purpose. The first defensive city boundary, a Gallo-Roman enclosure, was redrawn on several occasions: twice in medieval times, later in the fourteenth century and again in the seventeenth century. In 1784, just a few years before the French Revolution, a new city wall \u2013 the wall of the Fermiers g\u00e9n\u00e9raux (Farmers General), designed by Claude Nicolas Ledoux \u2013 again commenced construction, this time as an initiative to tax goods and people entering the city. A final outer fortification, created between 1841\u20131846, was adopted as the city\u2019s new limits by French Emperor Napoleon III and his prefect Georges-Eug\u00e8ne Haussmann in 1859, more than doubling the city\u2019s area and resulting in the establishment of its 20 arrondissements.<\/p>\n

Inevitably demolished, or buried beneath newer layers of built fabric, only remnants of these historic walls remain visible today \u2013 their outlines traced with roadways such as the Boulevard P\u00e9riph\u00e9rique, and dotted with monuments such as Ledoux\u2019s Rotonde de la Villette (1788). While on the city\u2019s outskirts at \u201cle P\u00e9riph,\u201d as it\u2019s known to locals, the tour winners observed how the previous politic of these sites \u2013 as limitors and segregators \u2013 had been thoughtfully redefined by a collection of contemporary civic and cultural projects.<\/p>\n

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Among these was the Stade (Stadium) Jules Ladoum\u00e8gue (1972), an indoor athletics hall designed by Jean Peccoux, which was partially reconstructed and extended by Dietmar Feichtinger Architectes in 2014 with the new Centre Sportif (Sports Centre) Jules Ladoum\u00e8gue, located alongside the site of the former 1846 city wall. The way in which extension cleverly stacks indoor and outdoor sporting facilities atop a light rail depot was much admired by the winners, with tour recipient Callum Senjov noting that the project\u2019s programmatic diversity had resulted in \u201c[transport] infrastructure [becoming] a catalyst for broader public benefit in the nineteenth arrondissement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nearby, the tour group also explored the Parc de la Villette and its iconic red follies \u2013 the realisation of a winning competition scheme from Bernard Tschumi Architects (1988). Haas described it as \u201cnot [merely] a park, but an exploded building,\u201d comprising points, lines of circulation and surfaces. Tour recipient Jasmine Placentino saw it as a progressive reordering of what was once a livestock market \u2013 into a public city park.<\/p>\n

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Returning to Paris\u2019s centre, a visit to the Bourse de Commerce revealed yet another dimension to the city\u2019s historical layering. Here, Tadao Ando\u2019s adaptive reuse of the city\u2019s eighteenth-century grain exchange into a contemporary art gallery had involved the installation of a new concrete-shelled exhibition space within the central rotunda, which tour winner Ksenia Totoeva interpreted as a scaled version of the surrounding drum.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on the relationship between Ando\u2019s intervention and the existing building fabric, fellow tour recipient Sharaan Muruvan commented, \u201cThe new and the old didn\u2019t feel like they were competing \u2026 it felt like they were complementing one another.\u201d Winner Jack Gillmer agreed, noting, \u201c[Ando\u2019s] insertion introduces contemporary architectural language into a historic structure with remarkable restraint, balancing heritage with new cultural ambitions. Neither exists independently of the other, each enriching and informing the other. The result is \u2026 a reminder that architecture is always both inheritance and transformation.\u201d<\/p>\n

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This sentiment remains at the core of Paris\u2019s urban development, with a continual rewriting of the city\u2019s built fabric remaining vital to its future evolution and adaptation to current challenges. Today, there are more than two million inhabitants within the metropolitan limits (still defined by Haussmann\u2019s 1859 plan), equating to more than 20,000 people per square kilometre. The city is, according to Haas, five times denser than any other European capital.<\/p>\n

While trying to meet the demands of population growth, and the unique challenge of population fluctuation resulting from tourism, Paris is also striving to adapt to the threats of climate change. In the face of increasing downpours and extreme flooding events, the city is turning itself into a green sponge with the creation of micro parks that increase the absorption of stormwater run-off and reduce urban heat island effects. Transformation of existing infrastructure, like the pedestrianisation of the 13-kilometre Georges Pompidou Seine river expressway by former mayor Anne Hidalgo in 2016, is also a significant part of the city\u2019s adaptation.<\/p>\n

\"Studio<\/p>\n

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In Gillmer\u2019s view, Paris remains an archive of the social, political, economic and technological forces that have shaped it over time. He reflected, \u201c[It] is a place where adaptation is not concealed but embedded within the urban fabric; where the evolution of society is inscribed into every building, street and public space.\u201d The city\u2019s continued appetite for change, always with respect for what has come before, offers a valuable lesson in city-making that is both site-responsive and forward-thinking. To embrace this approach, architects need only take up the role of archaeologists.<\/p>\n

Lucia Amies is travelling with the 2026 Australian Institute of Architects Dulux Study Tour. Follow #2026DuluxStudyTour<\/a> on social media and the blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n