ORLÉANS.- La Biennale d'Architecture is on view at the Frac Centre-Val de Loire in Orléans and is called Walking through someone else's dream. The title of this first edition confirms how we define the act of creation in art and architecture: a very particular way of walking through our dreams and fears to come back and narrate our story.

Since 1991 the Frac Centre-Val de Loire has emerged as a place dedicated to the relationship between art and architecture in their experimental dimensions through its collection. The retrospective and prospective work enriching the collection has brought together a unique heritage, a body of work and projects spanning 60 innovative years. Thanks to successive editions of the Archilab event (Rencontres internationales d'architecture d'Orléans), the Frac Centre-Val de Loire has become a major player in the international network.

Building on this heritage, La Biennale d'Architecture presents the various perspectives of over 30 contemporary architects on our ways of building a communal world, a world of proximities. Each edition will be an opportunity to reinitiate a dialogue with all the geographical histories of art and architecture—Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia and the Arab world.

Environmental issues, geopolitical upheaval and migrant flows have never made the future so uncertain. So what are the mechanisms governing the articulation of a potential, of an architectural and, beyond, a socio-political and environmental future?

The event maps out the landscape of architecture and circumstances deemed to be a place for convergence: the natural and the artefact, the economy, social, political, ecology, etc. Far from being an itinerary of affinities, the exhibition brings together distinct architectural principles that create areas of tension necessary to generate debate, and is also an opportunity to redefine our architectural typologies.

The Orléans metropolitan area has become a research laboratory full of students studying architecture and partner universities taking an active part. Whether in terms of land-related issues (metropolitan development, the relationship with architectural and natural heritage) or cultural (the redevelopment of brownfield sites into places of artistic creation), the biennale is an opportunity for large-scale experimentation.

Lastly, a historical perspective allows you to discover, through monographs, the work of guest architects or architects featuring in the collection.

At each edition there will be a guest of honour. Patrick Bouchain is being featured in 2017. This "Project Man" is a master of the art of capturing, unifying and revealing man's intelligence, expertise and imagination to inhabit the world differently.

Chief curators: Abdelkader Damani (director of Frac Centre-Val de Loire) / Luca Galofaro (architect)

Associate curator: Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi (curator)