Claude Parent — Pierre Virilio

A document produced by Gilles Coudert

(124 min. / 1996)

Conference-debate between the architect Claude Parent and the philosopher Paul Virilio presented by Frédéric Migayrou.

This film was produced as part of the cycle of Grandes Conférences designed by Alain Julien-Laferrière and organized by the Centre de Création Contemporaine and the Université François-Rabelais in Tours on December 11, 1996.

The collaboration between Claude Parent and Paul Virilio within the framework of the Architecture Principe group (1963/65) was a decisive moment for the history of contemporary architecture.

The construction of the Sainte-Bernadette-du-Banlay church in Nevers (1963) is the realization of this new conception of architectural space, based on the inclined plane allowing a dynamic experimentation of space. This “subversive” architecture, fundamentally critical of the post-war “falsely modernist” conformism, aimed to reflect the transformation of our relationship to the world. It was about destroying formal unity in favor of an architecture of movement.

“The strategy of the oblique is freedom” Claude Parent.
Claude Parent and Paul Virilio separated in 1968, and as the latter points out: “It’s not the little stories, but history that separated us.”
This conference, presented by Frédéric Migayrou, is the site of a fascinating and moving confrontation between these two minds whose theoretical positions on architecture and the contemporary world are among the most daring and significant of the past thirty years.

The DVD interface offers direct viewing of the film through a series of themes discussed during the conference.

Film © 1996 Triac Documentaire