The exhibition, titled The Grand Paris Express, of which Dominique Perrault has been appointed general commissioner by the Société du Grand Paris, has been opened at Expo Dubai 2020.

As part of the exhibition's itinerary, the exhibition is now being showcased at Dubai World Expo, from January 20th to February 21st, 2022, and will take place at the Biennale de Versailles, starting from May 13, 2022. 

The exhibition was inaugurated, in Dubai, on Wednesday January 19th in the presence of Jean-François Monteils, Chairman of the Management Board of Société du Grand Paris.

Designed by the architect and urban planner Dominique Perrault, this exhibition takes the form of an immersive pavilion inside which a film is broadcast at 360°, retracing the adventure of the "construction site of the century". 

The architect has invited the artist JR to propose an intervention that illustrates the place of inhabitants and future users at the heart of this project to transform the city.

"The Grand Paris Express is a project of exceptional scope, the largest civil engineering project currently underway in Europe," said Dominique Perrault. 

"A new mobility solution for nearly three million of future daily users, this network will make it easier for everyone to access the entire metropolis, its infrastructure and its economic, social and cultural hubs."

"This exhibition showcases French know-how in infrastructure, architecture and urban planning, but it also pays tribute to Europe’s ability to produce large-scale metropolitan projects with strong environmental ambitions, thanks to the international group of architects, engineers, designers and artists involved," Perrault added.

"The immersive journey offered in this pavilion offers visitors an original discovery of a project in progress, from the construction of a complex infrastructure to its influence on the diversity of the territories it crosses." 

Perrault added that "At a time when mobility has become an essential issue for the future of metropolises around the world, this project is designed to meet the needs of all audiences, whether they live in regional or global capitals."

The architect hopes that "the exhibition they have designed will question and show the synergy of skills at the service of a metropolitan development model that promotes the construction of a city that gives confidence to its population, which is both dense and pleasant to live in, connected, mixed, attractive and sustainable."

Image courtesy of Perrault Architecture

The pavilion, based on very simple geometric shapes, stands as a technical light cube which invites the visitor to discover the Grand Paris Express. 

The retrolighted outer panels provide straightforward maps and facts on the new network and its repercussions on the Paris region, as well as drawing parallels with the host city or the event in which the pavilion is settled.

When entering inside the cylindric space, a digital immersion will make the visitor travel from station to station, in a constant back-and-forth between the future neighbourhoods and the outstanding worksites.

This journey will offer a glimpse of the spectrum of architectural projects, and at the same time provide insights into the exceptional engineering challenges that are being met to build an underground network below such a dense urban fabric.

For the Dubai World Expo, the pavilion was specially redesigned to fit the exhibition space. JR’s artistic intervention is displayed on all the perimeter walls and immerses the visitor in a tour alternating between maps, documents and digital installation on the Grand Paris Express.

Thanks to the technique of photographic collage, JR, a native of Clichy-Montfermeil, exhibits freely on walls around the world, attracting the attention of those who do not usually visit museums. 

In 2011, he created Inside Out, an international participatory art project that allows people around the world to receive a print of their portrait, then paste it to support an idea, a project, an action and share the experience.

Dominique Perrault invited the artist JR to intervene around the exhibition to embody the place of the inhabitants and future users of the new metro. This artistic intervention echoes the "Tandems" approach, which aims to associate an artist with an architect for the design of a permanent work of art in each of the future stations of the Grand Paris Express. 

JR is working in tandem with architect Benedetta Tagliabue for the future Clichy-Montfermeil station of the Grand Paris Express.

Exhibition facts

Exhibition: The Grand Paris Express

Designer: Dominique Perrault

Location: Dubai Expo, Dubai, UAE

Date: January 20th to February 21th, 2022

All images © Guillaume Argento

> via Perrault Architecture