Génération is a 21,000m² office building that will open in 2022. Designed by the Chaix & Morel agency, it will be located in the Petite Espagne area in the heart of the Landy neighborhood. Manifesto is overseeing an artistic commission that aims to showcase the energy of the urban dynamics that drive this region, ahead of Paris 2024. In this way, it will contribute to the ambitious development of the region’s cultural and creative industries, led by the City of Saint-Denis and Plaine Commune, and to Sogelym Dixence’s commitment as a signatory of the “One Building, One Artwork” charter.

From July to September 2020, Manifesto organized a consultation for emerging artists (under 40) who have a special relationship with this region. They were invited to play with the entrance to the building, with its forecourt, its transparent façade and its entrance hall. 

Paul Créange's proposal was selected by a dedicated jury. Manifesto is in charge of accompanying the production of the work. The agency coordinates the realization of the prototypes for validation with the client and supervises the production and installation in conjunction with the fabricator and the artist. 

Manifesto has organized several educational workshops with the students of the Maria Casarès school in Saint-Denis and the artist, who has integrated the learnings of these exchanges into his work.

With his work entitled Passing by, Paul Créange imagined beams of light and images, composed of different materials that cross the building, entering and exiting from the undersides of the floors and drawing poetic forms in the space.

His main objectives were to create a set of works that were sympathetic to the architecture of the building, encompassing  different scales: an integration of airy and dynamic forms that respected the life inside the buildings and that were a strong signal from the outside. 

These beams have been designed in anamorphosis, so that they change depending on the viewers' position. From the outside of the building, they have a strong impact and seem to cross the whole building  in a progression that starts from the hall and ends on the fifth floor. 

Inside the beams adapt to the life of its users, evolving in the volumes of the fault and being fully appreciated from the balcony of the walkways. Their light is soft and colorful, their shapes vivid and inspiring. The images, which give the flows their colors, are fragments of photographs taken by Dionysian youth. 

The mixture of different materials evokes a familiar technology, carried towards the future. The luminous energy that spreads throughout the building thanks to this ensemble symbolizes vitality, the exchange of information, cultures and knowledge. 

In the image of Saint-Denis, of its energy and its mutation, it carries the energy of the youth of Saint-Denis and technical and contemporary materials. It is a strong symbol for its users as well as for the Dionysians.