XXX. « 4°CELSIUS ENTRE TOI ET MOI », BIENNALE D’ARCHITECTURE ET DE PAYSAGE D’ÎLE-DE-FRANCE BAP! 2025

The exhibition “4°Celsius Between You and Me” of the 3rd Biennale of Architecture and Landscape of Île-de-France / BAP! took place at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture of Versailles from May 7 to July 13, 2025. Curated by architects Sana Frini, from the Mexican firm LOCUS, and Philippe Rahm, from the French office PHILIPPE RAHM ARCHITECTES, the exhibition stems from the finding, officially announced in 2023 by former French Minister of Ecological Transition Christophe Béchu, that France will experience an increase of +4°C in temperature by the year 2100. With global warming, the currently temperate climate of Paris (and of other cities at the same northern latitude) will become subtropical — scorching and dry in summer, with heavy rainfall during other seasons — resembling the climates further south, such as those of Mexico, Tunisia, or southern Europe. The central idea of the exhibition “4°Celsius Between You and Me” is that architects working in the temperate climates of the north, such as Paris, must now look south — toward semi-arid, subtropical, Mediterranean, or even arid and tropical climates — to find the models for the architecture and urbanism of the future. To build their future, they will need to draw inspiration from architectural and landscape solutions developed in subtropical climates, in order to gain the know-how necessary to build, transform, and adapt the buildings and cities of northern latitudes to this temperature rise. The urban landscape of temperate climates will thus “Mediterraneanize” and “tropicalize” over the course of the 21st century, transforming the aesthetic of buildings and cities. The exhibition invites visitors to examine models from the South that have already been designed to withstand the heat of this new climate, by showcasing pre-fossil fuel architectures, works by contemporary architects, and finally, projections for the year 2100 imagined by architects, architecture critics, historians, and philosophers.