The Bartlett
Summer Show 2025
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Cast in the Act

Project details

Programme
Unit Unit 6
Year 3
Award
  • Bartlett School of Architecture Medal, MEng
  • Year 3 Portfolio Prize

Once upon a time, there was a gallows, which became a gypsum quarry, which turned into sewer, and then a slaughterhouse, to now a Parisian park of curated artifice.

Here, we return to the geology of the Buttes-Chaumont mound: carving out thermite-like tunnnels leading onto an auditorium, and transforming the gypsum extracted to make a twin hill, with bones out of timber scaffolding, and cast plaster modular spaces. The audience doesn't just sit and stare: they navigate the multiple non-linear journey this 'promenade' theatre offers into Goethe's 'Faust'.

They are both sound and echo, ghost and guest, caught and cast as conspiratorial actors in a moment where making and performing become one and the same.

The Gypsum and artificial Butte mirror eachother; on the top level they are connected by a wooden bridge, while the Ferryman connects the groudfloor level.

Section

The gypsum and artificial Butte mirror eachother; on the top level they are connected by a wooden bridge, while the Ferryman connects the groudfloor level.

The project is located on the Île du Belvédère, an island located on the lake of Parc des Buttes Chaumont, in the 19th arrondissement of Paris.

Ground Floor Plan

The project is located on the Île du Belvédère, an island located on the lake of Parc des Buttes Chaumont, in the 19th arrondissement of Paris.

Audience members are forced to enter one by one in the theatre, an initiation into the fragmented, labyrinthine experience that lies ahead: each step forward is a pact of sorts, between curiosity and surrender.

Entrance

Audience members are forced to enter one by one in the theatre, an initiation into the fragmented, labyrinthine experience that lies ahead: each step forward is a pact of sorts, between curiosity and surrender.

I - The slip casting of the Butte
II - Wanderer under the cave of fog
III - The Emperor's Court

Scenes

I - The slip casting of the Butte
II - Wanderer under the cave of fog
III - The Emperor's Court

Last night, the hill echoed with cackles of witches, clinking of glasses, perhaps even a whispered promise. But when the sun rose, the revelry ended, the spectators went home, the pact was made.

The Morning After Walpurgisnacht

Last night, the hill echoed with cackles of witches, clinking of glasses, perhaps even a whispered promise. But when the sun rose, the revelry ended, the spectators went home, the pact was made.

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The Bartlett
Summer Show 2025
26 June – 13 July
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