丨法国巴黎丨Studio Ossidiana

Architects:Studio Ossidiana

Year:2025

Photographs:Riccardo de Vecchi

Category:Installation

Studio Ossidiana Team:Alessandra Covini, Giovanni Bellotti and Klaas van der Molen with Viktoria Bacheva, Pedro Daniel Pantaleone, Anna Halek, Ruth Gonzalez, Mariagiulia Pistonese

Video Game Designer:Alice Bucknell

Curators:Jean-Max Colard, Joséphine Huppert, Alice Pialoux, assisted by Daphné Carreras

Producer Of The Soft Palace::Luigi D’Oro Studio, Arguzia srl

Curators Of The Assembly Of Objects::Olivier Zeitoun, Iris Carton Eldin

Head Of Design And Industrial Prospective:Marie-Ange Brayer

Collection Attachée, Design Department:Mathilde Vallée

Production Manager:Barbara Kugler

Sceneographer:Celine Coffin

Space Manager::Charlotte Cochelin

Artworks Manager:Nina Genonceau

Audiovisual Management:Alexandre Lebugle

Stage Management:François Pegalajar, Robin Vieville, Fabrice Pleynet

Interpreters:Marguerite Capelle, Caroline Ferrard, Adèle Hattemer, Yves Tixier

Partnership Coordination:Anaïs Izard, Camille Gorret

Host:Centre Pompidou

City:Paris

Country:France

Text description provided by the architects. Last summer, as the Pompidou was preparing to close its doors to the public, we began to imagine a nomadic embassy for the museum, which could travel and host its people, art, and events during the Beaubourg's renovation. Its first destination, the Salon d'Honneur within the Grand Palais.

We thought of this place as a soft palace, an address for big and small assemblies, events, exhibitions, where to be together, play, discuss, listen, but also where one could hide, have a nap, choose to be alone, and find the intimacy of a shelter a few steps away from a public assembly or a performance.

We designed the Soft Palace as a vast textile surface, a carpet folded and rolled onto itself to become a gigantic garment, of which every crease and fold could be explored, and every pocket inhabited. Once we step on it, we can move barefoot, lie or sit anywhere, take a stroll between exhibitions, performances, and games, participate in the collective choreography of its movements and events, or peek from the sheltered privacy of a side pocket.

Within the Soft Palace, any place can become the stage for an assembly, an event, or a performance, and we hope that every visitor will be both actor and spectator in the collective choreography of their day-to-day life.

The Soft Palace is an installation developed as part of the Fun Palace, an initiative of Centre Pompidou x GrandPalaisRmn. The project is hosting the video game Nightcrawlers by artist Alice Bucknell, and a selection of design pieces from the Centre Pompidou's collection curated by Olivier Zeitoun and Marie-Ange Brayer. The Fun Palace is developed in collaboration with philosopher Emanuele Coccia and curated by Jean-Max Colard, Joséphine Huppert and Alice Pialoux. The Fun Palace is a co-production of the Centre Pompidou and GrandPalaisRmn with the support of the Chanel Culture Fund.

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