A collection of texts, projects and images by the Parisian architecture studio on the subject of the highway, the most radical public space ever imagined, but also the most divisive and criticized today, questioning our relationship with modernity.
The highway as an obsession, capable of illuminating the unconscious of an architectural practice. Such could be the succinct description of this book, that gathers unreleased or already published texts by Studio Muoto on this intriguing theme. This eclectic collection of texts - extracts from articles or lectures, notes, project descriptions - is complemented by an outright photographic scrapbook produced by the architects who designed the French pavilion at the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale, 2023. These images, taken during their travels and their many projects, illustrate their obsessions as much as the wanderings of their thoughts. Holy Highway reflects the principle of the exploratory journey as the foundation of an architectural sensibility.
The Muoto studio is an architecture agency based in Paris since 2003, founded by Gilles Delalex and Yves Moreau. Its activities cover the fields of project management, management of research and teaching. Muoto projects are often characterised by minimal structures that allow a multitude of different forms to be combined of activities and to respond to economic and aesthetic issues. The agency pleads for an architecture primitive, both frugal and generous, which can evolve over time.
Gilles Delalex, French architect, studied in Grenoble and Montreal. He has a master's degree in urban planning and a doctorate in art from Alvar Aalto University, Helsinki. He is a professor at the Paris-Malaquais School of Architecture where he is head of the department Theory, History, Project. He taught at the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées from 2004 to 2008. He is a researcher at the Laboratoire Liat, since 1998.
Yves Moreau, a Belgian-Dutch architect, studied at the Saint Luc School of Arts in Brussels. He is a graduate of Chalmers Teknista Högskala, Gothenburg. He worked with Blå Arkitektur Landskap, from 2000 to 2001, Parfums Christian Dior, and Dominique Perrault from 2001 to 2006. In 2008, he was the winner of "Nouveaux Albums des Jeunes Architectes et paysagistes".
