Senses Atlas

After the Second World War an international competition was launched to build a basilica in the city of Higüey in the Dominican Republic. This city, which then had barely 10,000 inhabitants, saw the emergence of a monumental concrete cathedral at a time when its growing economic importance was just beginning.

Jacques de Vaulx (1557-1597) was a French cosmographer and navigator. He is mainly known for his handwritten navigation manual, as well as for his explorations in America. He is one of the emblematic Norman navigators of the 16th century.

Benjamin Bardou is a French artist and filmmaker working on visual experiments in urban environments. He has made a series of short films in which different spatial components are displayed. These urban atmospheres are part of the Megalopolis project, an urban area developed in the aftermath of the World Wars

This hypothetical map illustrated by Howard Burke is deliberately provocative in its violent depiction of the end of the United States, two years before the Second World War. It represents a bleak future for the United States : if it were to lose the war that was about to begin, its territory would be divided among the victors.

Freddy Mamani is a Bolivian architect coming from an Aymara family. His neo-Andean constructions are mainly located in the city of El Alto, above La Paz. Inspired by the Aymara culture, he has developed a unique, colourful, highly ornamented architecture and a new typology, the cholet.

The Anastasis church, is a white concrete monolith designed by Alvaro Siza, built in the heart of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Lande in France. The sacred building is the first church built in the 21st century in Brittany, but it is also a modular place open to the life of the neighbourhood.

The Gávea Tourist Hotel also known locally as Hotel Esqueleto (Skeleton Hotel) is located in the heights of Rio de Janeiro, between the districts of Gávea and São Conrado. It is a ruined hotel, abandoned and never completed, located near the Casa das Canoas de Niemeyer, almost lost in the forest between the mountains.

The Oosterscheldekering is the largest of the Delta Works dams and surge barriers. This 9km long barrier was built between 1976 and 1986 to limit marine flooding following the North Sea Flood of 1953. It is the most famous work of the Delta Works because of its monumental size but also its innovative hydraulic technology and its complex and unique construction.

For the 1964 Olympic Games, Japan invested huge amounts of capital in the construction of sports infrastructures. The architecture of the sports buildings gave the image of a modern nation, developed and more powerful than ever. The gymnasium architecture of Kenzo Tange can be considered as a manifesto of the modern Japanese architecture that revealed itself to the world during the Olympic Games.

Gustav Klimt was an Austrian painter, representative of the Vienna Secession and iconic decorator of Viennese Art Nouveau. He’s known for his way of reinventing allegorical and symbolist imagery, but also painted a certain amount of forest landscapes. His tree paintings were mainly done at the beginning of the 20th century, when his career marked a turning point.