The Building of the National Archives
Commissioned by the OPPIC – 2005-2012
In the winter of 2005, the Émoc (Établissement public de maîtrise d’ouvrage des travaux culturels) commissioned Gilles Raynaldy to document the « Tartres site » and its surroundings in the northern suburbs of Paris, on the edge of the towns of Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, Saint-Denis and Stains, where the new National Archives building was to be constructed. The images were intended to provide the architectural jury with a visual record of the surrounding urban landscape. Agricultural activity and traces of rural life – fields, disused water towers, derelict land – were juxtaposed with large housing estates. In 2008, the photographer was approached again by the client to photograph the archaeological excavations, and then in 2010 to follow the construction site through to completion. The result is a collection of around 500 images.
The photographer has taken this traditional monitoring of a construction site — usually limited to documentation and communication by the companies — and used it to create a memory of the different layers that naturally overlap, obscure one another and fade over time. His photography becomes an archaeology of the present. With the photographs of the transformations of 19th-century Paris in mind, he has also photographed the surroundings of this building site, which is set to undergo radical changes in the years to come. Other photographs show the workers, reminding us that every architectural project is also the work of its builders.
The first part of this series was exhibited at the National Archives in Paris in 2005. A second exhibition took place in the new building in Pierrefitte-sur-Seine from September 2012 to October 2013.
This gallery presents a selection from the series.
Interview on France Culture on the occasion of the exhibition at the National Archives in 2012
https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/ballade-des-archives-nationales/l-expo-photos-de-gilles-raynaldy-pierrefitte-sur-seine