Study day organised by ENSA Paris-Est and the LAB research institute at the Catholic University of Louvain.

Organised through an inter-university partnership between the Observatoire de la condition suburbaine (OCS) laboratory at ENSA Paris-Est and the LAB research institute at the Catholic University of Louvain, the study dayThe Materialities of the Ephemeral City examines, from an interdisciplinary perspective, the materialities of temporary urban installations created for celebrations, festivals, events or protests: lightweight, demountable structures, performative installations, street furniture, scenography and performances created using ‘soft materials’ such as plants, sand, edible products, screens, bodies and phenomena (light, sound, optical effects). The guiding hypothesis is that the ‘ephemeral city’ is first and foremost a city of materials, reconfiguring the use of streets and squares and shifting the canonical definitions of architecture. The study day will examine the political and symbolic agency of these “weak materials”, their sensory phenomenologies, the collective rituals of making and unmaking, as well as the traces, waste and ecologies they generate. Conceived as a critical laboratory, the conference will feature contributions spanning different periods and geographies, with a view to illuminating how these material assemblages celebrate, challenge or subvert the urban order, and how they offer alternatives to the dominant rhythms of the contemporary city.

Program

9:30 a.m.: Welcome

9:40 a.m.-10:50 a.m.: MATTER IN ACTION
Bart Tritsmans, University of Antwerp, Urban spaces as temporary interiors of activism

Aurore Damoiseaux, University of Brighton in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Soft materials for protest: ephemeral domesticity at Greenham Common

Leonie Link, Bauhaus-University Weimar, Ornamental Agency, On Textiles, Publics and Urban Surface

10:50 a.m.-11:10 a.m.: IN PRACTICE: Peter Behrbohm

11:10 a.m.-11:30 a.m.: Coffee break

11:30 a.m.-12:45 p.m.: MATTER IN COMMAND

Jonas Klaasse, Institute of Architecture Technology at Graz University of Technology; Noemí Gómez Lobo, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos; Diego Martín Sánchez, Cultural Landscape Research Group, Technical University of Madrid, Ephemeral Monumentality: Material Politics and the Urban Staging of Power in Modern Spain

Taylor Van Doorne, University of California, Santa Barbara, Fragile Histories, Mutable Futures, and Ephemeral Monuments in Post-Revolutionary Paris

Dubravka Botica, University of Zagreb, The Royal Adventus to Zagreb in 1818: A Festival of Light and Ephemeral Architecture

Tania Levy, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, Réutilisation et diffusion de la cité idéale : ce qu’il reste d’une entrée royale après l’événement

12:45 p.m.-1:05 p.m.: IN PRACTICE: Léone Drapeaud – Traumnovelle

1:05 p.m.-2:00p p.m.: Lunch break

2:00 p.m.-3:30 p.m.: MATTER IN URBANISM

Chiara Pradel, TU Delft, Material Yards, Ephemeral Landscapes of Materials Recovery

Nathalie Donat-Cattin, University of Bologna, Edible Cities: Roth’s Ephemeral Urbanism

Marion Boisset, ENSA Paris-Est, Inhabitable Thickness: Rethinking the Ephemeral through In-Between Spaces

Tuliza Sindi, Carnegie Mellon University; Miliswa Ndziba, room19isaFactory., What Has Two Eyes and Too Many Ears?, University of Johannesburg, Black Futuring in the Public Interior

3:30 p.m.-3:50 p.m.: IN PRACTICE: Laura Salazar, Pablo Sequero and Juan Medina – salazarsequeromedina

3:50 p.m.-5:20 p.m.: MATTER IN PLAY

Leonardo Dias, University of Porto, The Fishing Scene. Blessing the Cod Fleet in Lisbon, 1936-1973

York Bing Oh, University of Antwerp, Makeshift, placemaking: inhabiting the public space. Case study: 2kmtogetheratthetable

Vincenzo Moschetti, Sapienza University of Rome, The Fifth Ecology. Los Angeles and the Ephemeral 1984 Olympic Games

5:20 p.m.-5:40 p.m.: IN PRACTICE: Ambra Fabi – Piovenefabi

CLOSING REMARKS

Organisers

• Silvia Groaz, senior lecturer, ENSA Paris-Est - Université Gustave Eiffel
• Beatrice Lampariello, Professor, Université catholique de Louvain, Belgique

Practical informations

The event is open to the public in person at the Paris IAS (17 quai d’Anjou, 75004 Paris), or via videoconference by following this link: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/323778561777430?p=C7t0WzM4l18MrmZXSb.

For further information, please contact Silvia Groaz by email: silvia.groaz@paris-est.archi.fr or ephemeral.city.2026@gmail.com