The Rurapolis Platforms:

Architectural and performative means of action in the abandoned territories of the Pyrenean cross-border space

Authors

  • Salomé Wackernagel LéaV/ÉNSA Versailles – CY Université Paris-Cergy

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1344/co20233565-75

Abstract

A possible reimagining of the phenomenon of urban sprawl is presented here, with a view to exploring and projecting a model of territorial development adapted to present and future societal and climatic contingencies: this involves rethinking the urban landscape on the basis of fragmented and neglected rural typologies. The Rurapolis platforms are anchored in the cross-border territory of the Pyrenees – between Navarre in Spain and the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in France. A collective process of rammed earth construction combined with contemporary dance, brought to the abandoned village of Egulbati for a few days, will be used to address the issue of rural depopulation in a region where there are more than a hundred abandoned villages. These ruins, which run like fissures through the landscape, are seen here as potential clusters to activate a Rurapolis adapted to the ecological transition. The aim here is to show how a small-scale cultural initiative such as the Rurapolis platforms would allow us to take action in the context of the climate and health crisis, assess the viability of a larger-scale, long-term territorial project, and ultimately give visibility to a possible renaissance of the rural environment and its ruins on the back of a collective experience that revives a forgotten place.

Author Biography

Salomé Wackernagel, LéaV/ÉNSA Versailles – CY Université Paris-Cergy

Salomé Wackernagel is an architectural designer and researcher defending a pluridisciplinary approach in her own practice of architecture. She is currently developing a practice-led PhD under the title Rurapolis – Rethinking the Periphery from Rural Ruins in the Pre-Pyrenees. She is specialized in collaborative processes and self-construction in the public space, working on architectural, social and cultural projects in different urban and rural contexts. After studying architecture and design in Paris, Versailles (France) and Berlin (Germany), where she also worked from 2012 as a freelance architect for Raumlabor (Berlin), Museumstechnik Berlin in collaboration with David Chipperfield Architects (Berlin), Lacaton & Vassal (Paris), in the fields of scenography, urbanism and social housing, and finally co-founded the architecture collective Enter This, she moved to Spain in 2018. Salomé Wackernagel is currently in residence at the Laboral Centro de Arte in Gijón, Asturias, and visiting researcher at the Geography Department of the University of Navarre (UNAV).

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Published

2024-03-19