The French situation. Relations between environment and ecology.

The French situation.
Relations between
environment
and ecology.

The French delegation’s declaration at the International Design Conference in Aspen is evidence of critical developments and profound changes resulting from a new awareness of planetary environmental issues. In fact, during the 60’s, with the strong rupture of May 1968, and like other industrialized countries France witnesses the transformation of its institutions. The milieu of culture and artistic creation (art, design architecture, communication) bring this renewal into play. While CalArts (California) brings innovation to its teaching of the arts and design, in France, the Institute of the Environment is created, seeking to construct new methods for research and multidisciplinary teaching. Witness accounts and archival documents enable us to apprehend the ﬁrst elements of a history which remains to be explored.
Today, environment and ecology are very directly associated and are primordial issues for industry. Designers are confronted with challenges running from sustainable development to greenwashing, the frontiers between which are difﬁcult to deﬁne and constantly require rethinking.

Memories
of ASPEN 1970.
Sharing stories.

Jeanne Quéheillard

The Institut
of Environment

Le Ministère des Affaires Culturelles founds the Institut of Environment, which opens its doors in 1969 on rue Erasme in Paris in a new building built by Robert Joly and Jean Prouvé. This center for teaching and research, in keeping with the architecture teaching reform wanted, in line with Bauhaus and the Ulm school, to invent a multidisciplinary teaching method, train teachers, and create optimum conditions for research. By bringing together the arts, design, architecture, sociology and economy under the same roof, it attempted to thwart the prerogatives of a speciﬁc discipline. It tried to establish new approaches in order to meet the challenges of a “sensitive environment” to quote André Malraux. For political reasons, this multidisciplinary teaching institute only remained open from 1970 to 1975. Jean Prouvé’s rue Erasme building was transformed.
Witness accounts and archival documents bring us closer to this singular experience.

The Institut
of Environment

Jeanne Quéheillard

The Institut
of Environment:
the Experience
of a Utopia
(1969-1976)

Monique Eleb

Nº 1 of the magazine
Environnement

“Technologie
et Imaginaire” panel discussion, 8 of may, 1973 at l’Institut de l’Environnement

Information
bulletin,
October 1975

Research projects
of the regular course 1970-71.

The sociologist and lawyer Pierre Lascoumes brings his perspective to the ambiguities of the green economy and sustainable development in today’s industrial production in view of Jean Baudrillard’s declaration at the Aspen conference and the context of the 1970’s.

Design and environment in the balance
From renewable
development
to greenwashing

Pierre Lascoumes