MAISON GUERMONT, a total artwork
Basic information
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Project Description
3 years of experimentations are necessary to transform a common old shop into a habitable sculpture combining sustainability, poetry & innovation in the Parisian nest of Romanticism.
Each element of daily life (handle, air, spoon, insulation) is the subject of reflecting & challenging 80 disciplines (dressmaker, metal industrial, sommelier, plumber) to obtain new experiences & objects; all dialoguing together thanks to use, form, color.
The fuel: pleasure to excel/build together.
Geographical Scope
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Urban or rural issues
Physical or other transformations
EU Programme or fund
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Description of the project
Summary
While I need a shelter (like many people), I bought in 2018 an old travel agency (because it was cheaper) in the New Athens neighbourhood (the nest of Romanticism in Paris where many artists and scientists decided to gather in order to live and work together one century ago). But quickly my art vocation (I am an artist) and my taste for experimentation and innovation (I am an engineer) caught me. And finally, after more than 3 years of hard work with 80 companies I have still no flat 😊 … but I have lived a marvellous human and technical adventure & a habitable total artwork that allies ancestral handcraftsmanship & high-tech is born.
So it is the lighhouse transformation of an old commercial space without any wall insulation, nor sewage disposal, nor thought about rehabilitation (the linoleum of the floor was glued with double-sided tape on tiles glued on mosaic glued on parquet) into a sustainable, innovative & poetic home with a new way of living. This in the heart of a sleepy neighborhood that could reconnect with its golden age.
I have challenged 80 French companies (start-up makers of socks, industrialist of aluminum, dressmaker, plumber... best sommelier in the world) to build together an experimental inhabitable piece of art with pleasure & benevolence.
After making companies to work together, the resulting artworks-objects dialogue together thanks to use, color & form to obtain a global harmony.
Creation process: I dream/feel, I draw the idea/concept/form, I find the best talent to materialize it, I understand his desire to be challenged more, I marry him with another talent if needed, he makes prototypes, he succeeds, he offers to me and is glad to be part of a cutting-edge innovative less is more impact total artwork.
Without any money but passion & creativity we succeed in creating beauty, mobilizing a community of diverse skills, giving hope despite the crisis, interacting with the neighborhood, we can move mountains!
Key objectives for sustainability
We can continue to build important things while respecting the environment, new-tech can be a good help for this.
In the total artwork the talents are local: 80 French companies.
The resources are used sparingly, up-cycling, 3D printing to save material.
The air comes from outdoors after being experimentally depolluted.
No more need for water in plastic bottles because the water that comes out of the tap is sparkling & purified with a new system without chemistry.
The paints are organic & the floor is wood made in Alsace in order to reduce the Volatile Organic Compounds.
The coloured leather & textiles are made without polluting ink.
The chair is made with 1.2kg of recycled steel & scraps of fabric from the upholsterer arrived by bus.
The warming glasses (with an experimental warming lighting mirror) save 30% of electricity.
A big work is also made to remotely & cleverly control all the elements (purification of water/air, fumes' detection, safety, glasses’ warmth, hot water tank, electro-valve for water's evacuation, secured access by short-duration code received on phone) from a unique interoperable tool made by the domotician's system.
It's a mix of smart uses, cutting-edge techs & craftsmanship to consume less, feel proud & live happier/comfortable.
Producing rare & long lasting (so resistant & beautiful) things without polluting is a good way to be eco-friendly.
" A magical place, art & technology at the service of a new poetics of living. Living as an artist, an artist who is at the same time in love with materials/colors/forms & passionate about the most contemporary techs is the adventure that Guermont offers us with her total artwork. Within this "machine" combining emotion & advanced features, a new art of living is emerging linked to today’s challenges like sustainability & inclusivity". By Antoine Picon Doctoral Programs' Director at Harvard for architecture & for technology.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
Art has no limits, is a universe language connecting oneself to another. The total artwork connects 80 plants (the sewer of Chanel works with a company breeding ducks for DOUDOUNE).
My strategy is to give functions to artworks in order to make them essential to daily living. Due to the lockdown: + attention to indoors. One can dream thanks to a faucet that is a functional sculpture (the form showing the precious water).
Poetry & functionality are thought together, realized thanks to hidden techniques.
The artworks-objects interact thanks to use, 3 colours (white/gold/Blue Sky of Paris) & 3 forms (pyramid/cloud/madeleine): SPOON, CARPET, FAUCET dialogue thanks to the same pyramid.
New poetical experiences: to have cocktail+shower in BAR-DOUCHE; to listen to clouds' sounds by touching the wall.
I join philosopher Alain de Botton on impact of architecture on well-being & Stendhal on "beauty is happiness' promise".
"Everything is connected to everything, from the micro to the macro, from function to form: Guermont's attention for rich scenographic detail, for local craftsmanship & the balance of old/new achieved by deliberate stylistic transgression, remind of Gio Ponti.
Her spatial conversion is based on details on various scales that communicate with each other via echoes, while different materials serve as transitions both separating & connecting, in many instances taking on a narrative character.
She strongly believes that architecture & fixtures must be totally good or in today's language perfectly accommodating the needs of the user. The expression of happiness is perfectly visible in her choices for balanced geometric patterns articulated around triangles that turn into diamonds; for quiet but precious ornaments such as the bespoke forms of shells & clouds; for the joyous luminosity & steady variety of the colors white/gold/blue: the trinity." By Chris Dercon, President of RMN-Grand Palais
Key objectives for inclusion
The criteria used to select the partners of the total artwork are not the money, the size of the company nor the place of birth... but supposed capacity to work with others, professional talents & sympathy.
I want to show that there are talents in many fields in France & Europe, & they deserve to be put in the light. Some talents were difficult to find because they are put in the shadow by some obedient industries. Other are revealed by the project's interaction with new knowledge & know-how.
Why is a lacemaker paid less than a domotician? In the total artwork, all the partners have equal importance (devoted time to them, communication, festive highlights...) because for me they are all essential and complemetary. For ex, the freelance embroiderer who spent 8 weeks to make 2 cm2 of dentelle benefits from the same visibility as the aluminium industrial, the gilder or the plumber.
The partners had the opportunity to work with an artist, to contribute to an artwork, to innovate with an engineer, for the first time for many of them.
They discovered other persons (8 other collaborations between partners that didn't know each other before) & shared the same adventure. To give meaning to work, to dream and to surpass are important
I have tried as much as possible to understand their know-how to challenge them more and to support all of them. Even if during the first lockdown I continued my "jobsite meetings" virtually (thanks to Zoom & scans of the jobsite) just because I felt that my partners needed them because it's a well of positivity.
Also, it was great to see partners congratulate each other (some of them never receive any compliments). During a jobsite meeting, the brass maker arrived and put on the table FAUCET PHARES, everybody said "wow!" and he became pink.
Shared love & selfconfidence are so important to make the world better.
This all will be enlarged with wider inclusive activities & performances with the publi
Results in relation to category
All my 80 partners have the feeling to belong to a community of excellency (cf testimonies in appendice). All of them have trusted me, surpassed themselves, accepted to interact with other fields. All of that without being paid, just for the sake of art.
The new techniques, artwork-objects & experiences of this project are prototypes; 10 partners are so proud of them that they want to edit/industrialize to share with a wider audience.
Every point was the subject of creativity. For ex, as I can not push the walls I had the idea of exploiting unused spaces like the backfill of the floor to make another room for library/washing machine/dishwasher/technical.
I join philosopher Alain de Botton on architecture's impact on well-being & of Stendhal on "beauty is happiness". The total artwork can be an illustration of it.
" Just as the economist Joseph Schumpeter theorized the concept of creative destruction, MAISON GUERMONT enters the virtuous logic of recycling without preconceived ideas or dogmatism. It escapes the indigence of banality, because it frees us from pre-stressed thoughts, because it revitalizes a neighborhood, because it goes beyond egotistical creation to celebrate collective work, its effects are similar to acupuncture.
The cement of this construction? Passion. Know-how. The love of work well done. The magic of meetings. The pleasure of working together. The desire to share. The beauty of something free.
She knows how to find the missing link, to brush egos aside & to highlight individual talents in the service of the creation of the work of art resulting from her imagination.
Carried by a charisma inversely proportional to the financial means, encouraged by the pleasure to make dialogue between improbable universes, the management of operations led by Milène rests on a logic of co-production combining sensitivity, ancestral know-how, technical innovations, all embodying French excellence." By Delphine Désveaux, architecture expert.
How Citizens benefit
People:
1 artist/engineer
+ 80 partner companies (= approx 400 people) of all fields of society
+ the companies that are not officially partners (they offer material but do not innovate) or can not go to the end (= 100 people) due to the pandemic or because the experiment is not satisfying. NB: I have met 12 plumbers to find the good one who can understand my ideas and is capable of working with the other partners
+ the police for safety
+ the closest coffee-bar to receive our packages
+ the public
Benefits:
to participate to a very unique human adventure, to be part of a community sharing the same value based on pleasure to work together and excel to obtain artwork with innovation and sustainibility
to contribute/discover to an artwork
to dream
to have pleasure/share success & happiness
to work with an artist
to be challenged
to do R&D, to innovate with new techs and materials
to create new concepts/way of living/experiences
to know other talents
to be put in light (communication)
to create beauty and make accessible thanks to the edited/industrialized pieces
to imagine a new kind of house in the continuity of the Bauhaus spirit (cf extract of the book in appendices)
to vivify a neighborhood and make link with its inheritance
to create free and new performances & events for the public in the street
Indeed, the public will see from the street a part of the total artwork (through the 2 window-screens) that becomes a “stage” for performances (dance, show...). Literary salon or other events can occur inside the total artwork. This is meaningful with the golden age of this neighborhood that was the center of artists & intellectuals one century ago.
It is planned to be installed outdoors on the facade a piece made of Polysensual Concrete that emits sounds when it is touched (in the continuity of MDR that laughs when students pet it), it will be the first one accessible day and night to everyone, freely, in a public space.
Physical or other transformations
Innovative character
Innovation is used to concretize art (not only for the numerical part but also for concrete and tactile ones).
Art is used to make a house.
The gathering of many people of complementary fields to make a permanent & innovative artwork without need of approvals nor exterior money is uncommon today.
Without any money but passion & creativity we succeed in creating beauty, mobilizing a community of diverse skills of excellency, giving hope despite the crisis, interacting with the neighborhood, we can move mountains!
"The power of the artist lies in her ability to transgress conventions, to make reality go wild. By conceiving this place of life as a global work where everything is designed by her and conceived under her artistic direction, from the floor to the ceiling, Milène Guermont allows herself all the deviations from conventions, all the audacities. Her magic wand is none other than her creative breath, her ability to give life to her world in order to offer it to the public. In doing so, she inoculates her partners and accomplices with the most beautiful and virtuous of viruses, that of creative energy, carried by her belief in the strength of collective intelligence.
With her total artwork, Milène Guermont dares to reinvent everything. With this requirement applied to each detail: that everything be poetic and functional at the same time, durable and possibly transposable to another environment." By Marion Vignal art/design curator, journalist at Le Monde."Maison Guermont spells out an "alphabet" of poetic and innovative artworks-objects that rethink daily life as a spectacle and sensualize the relationship with things, between an experimental pocket-sized Trianon of the 21st century & a luxury start-up 2.0.
Many correspondences and echoes exist between this work and the territories of "French luxury" that combines beauty, innovation & durability." By Marie-Clémence Barbé-Conti, author, luxury expert
Learning transferred to other parties
Due to the lockdown, + attention is paid to indoors. I am convinced that one can dream thanks to a faucet.
Continuation of this experimental total artwork:
- edition of artwork-objects (with less expensive material to make more affordable these dreaming pieces to more households)
- industrialization of some concepts (BAR-DOUCHE to have bath & cocktail simutaneously), techniques (sparking purified water from the faucet), tool (interoperable domotician system) and materials (the purified air that comes unobstrusively from the wall of the house).
- transfer of the mindset & the creation process (without any money but with passion) for other fields, know-how, countries or other kinds of spaces and objects to transform them with creativity/beauty/innovation. It's particularly relevant for the countries of Europe due to the amazing inheritance of know-how/knowledge.
The New European Bauhaus Awards can help to reach another step while giving envy to creators from all Europe to also be part of the total artwork in Paris, like a dancer from Norway to create a special dance into it, a composer from Austria to imagine music inspired by it, a chef from Italy to cook a dinner influenced by it…
Your competition can be a recognition of 3 years of hard work & transform our project into a unification of European talents.
"The history of the hotel industry teaches that it's private initiatives carried out in a very personal way by a few visionaries that gave birth to new ways of living that were then adapted for the benefit of the greatest number.
Her total artwork offers a new approach to the habitat at a time when the whole planet is led to isolate itself & to spend more time at home. We can only encourage her poetic, intelligent, eco-responsible and federative house.
This habitable sculpture is off the beaten track & at the same time is in line with the "Beautiful/Good/Useful" of today’s modernity." By Christian Mantei, President of Atout France
