“I would like there to be stable, immobile, intangible, untouched and almost untouchable places, immutable, rooted; places that would be references, starting points, sources. … But such places do not exist, and it is because they do not exist that space becomes question, ceases to be obvious, ceases to be incorporated, ceases to be appropriate. Space is a doubt: I must constantly mark it, designate it; it is never mine, it is never given to me, I must conquer it.”

Fifty years after its publication (1974, Galilee editions), George Perec’s «Species of Spaces» has never been more relevant. Space doubt: between subprime crises, tsunamis, giant fires, droughts and epidemics, the beginning of this century has shifted societal, environmental and, consequently, architectural issues. A symbol of stability and permanence, the art of building must now cope with an unpredictable future. If the classical period was that of interpretation and the modern period that of prediction, the 21st century ushers in an era of indeterminacy. To transform this state of generalized uncertainty into a project engine, it is imperative to observe, describe and understand a world that has become complex, heterogeneous and contradictory.
On the occasion of the exhibition «Espaces sans Espèces» at the Galerie d'architecture, LAN makes an inventory of eleven spaces (and as many projects) whose definition is open and whose emergence is not linked to a functional requirement but rather to a perspective, climate, social and sometimes resounding a contradictory or paradoxical condition. These are places at the crossroads between several typologies, several climates, several uses. Marked by opportunism, they share the ambition to embody potential responses to climate, societal and cultural change. Eleven new species of spaces, or rather eleven spaces without species.