La ville pour penser demain (“The City to Imagine the Future”) questions the notion of the “city” as a place to live, but also as a playground and a place of experimentation, much like in the works of G. Perec. For the Cité des Métiers 2022, the Department of Interior Architecture of HEAD – Genève designed the set for the guest of honour: HES-SO – Genève. This event welcomed close to 100,000 visitors who, for one week, walked through and experienced a city made up of 6 universities and HES-SO – Genève.

The scenography of the Cité des Métiers presents an image of the contemporary city, an active and mobile city, where the pooling and sharing of resources and ideas is fully facilitated by appropriable spaces. This vision is made visible in the form of a 120-metre-long table. It updates contemporary thought through its diversified content and through the actions and encounters it generates. Like a networked city, the table is a dynamic vector in space that creates collective and individual experiences, like a form of interior urban planning. This place, open to all, encourages people to group together and fosters a privileged relationship between people.

Integrated in the structural continuity of the table, lighting structures the space and specifies the programmes which characterise the different areas and contribute to the special atmosphere of this urban place. Essential to the form, it tells us where to look and what to look at – where to stay alone and where to gather. It also helps to develop the framework and unique character of this contemporary city, whose aesthetic is assertive and coloured with aluminised reflections, tinged with piercing cyan blue. This coloured linear horizon reflects the dynamics of this strong and diffuse city.

HEAD – Genève. Interior Architecture Department

Project Leader: Line Fontana, Interior Architect HEAD – Genève, Studio critic
Development and realisation: Bertrand van Dorp & Valentin Dubois, Interior Architects HEAD – Genève
Concept and preliminary project: Tina Felix & Melina Meyer, Students HEAD – Genève
Head of department : Dr Javier F. Contreras
Deputy Head : Valentina De Luigi