Université de Strasbourg

Mickaël Labbé

Biography - Mickaël Labbé

Research Centre for Contemporary German Philosophy (CREPHAC), University of Strasbourg, France

Mickaël Labbé, USIAS Fellow 2021

Mickael Labbé is a graduate and doctor of philosophy. Since 2017, he has been a lecturer in aesthetics and the philosophy of art within the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Strasbourg.

Following on from his thesis on the architectural thought of Le Corbusier, his research has, for more than ten years, focused on the philosophy of architecture considered under two main aspects: the understanding of the history of a construction as a discipline, and the creation of a political and social philosophy of the architecture of the city. His current research aims to understand the environmental and social challenges of the Anthropocene era, and how they affect the architectural, urban and spatial conditions of the habitability of the Earth.

In addition to numerous articles on these subjects, he is notably the author of a number of books (in French), including Key Texts on the philosophy of Architecture. Forms, functions and meanings (Vrin, 2017), Resuming space. Against the architecture of contempt (Payot, 2019) and Le Corbusier's Architectural Philosophy. Building Standards (Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2020). He also edited the volumes Le Corbusier: Thinking in Architecture (Vrin, 2013), Atmospheres: Philosophy, Aesthetics, Architecture (Vrin, 2019) and Between Philosophy and Architecture (Archives de Philosophie, 2020).

Project - Beyond city and nature: architecture, city and nature in the Anthropocene

01/11/2021 - 31/10/2023

The Anthropocene poses a major challenge to the conditions of habilitability on Earth and ecological thinking has, for over a decade now, been engaged in deconstructing one of the supposed sources of the crisis, namely the naturalist-modernist duality between nature and culture. However, it must be noted that this "great division", which is deconstructed everywhere, persists in the territorialized and spatialized form of an ever-increasing opposition between the city and nature, despite the fact that the urban condition is a global condition of our environments today.

This resolutely interdisciplinary project aims to propose an ecological and social philosophy of the city as a natural creation, based on a fusion between social philosophy, environmental sciences and architectural theory. Another aim will be to develop pragmatic and collaborative tools to reflect on the forms of architecture that would allow us to reconcile the preservation of the habitability of the Earth and the imperatives of social justice.

Post-doc biography - Victor Fraigneau

Research Centre for Contemporary German Philosophy (CREPHAC), University of Strasbourg, France

Victor FraigneauTThe architect Victor Fraigneau obtained his PhD in 2020 with a thesis focusing on architecture in an olfactory sense (L'architecture au sens olfactif. Penser les sensibilités, les milieux, les communs, depuis les agentivités olfactives). He subsequently took up a post-doctoral position to work on the USIAS project "Beyond city and nature: architecture, city and nature in the Anthropocene" in Strasbourg. He teaches at the National School of Architecture Paris la Villette (ENSAPLV), within the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Strasbourg, and at the École Polytechnique in Paris.

He was an awarded sponsorship for research in architecture and landscape as part of a programme launched by the Caisse des Dépôts in 2017. Victor Fraigneau also received a grant for research from the JSPS Summer Program for which he was invited to theKuma Laboratory within the the University of Tokyo’s Department of Architecture, and was resident of the Cité Internationale des Arts of Paris in 2019, with support from a programme of the French Academy of Architecture.

During his PhD at the Gerphau laboratory (at ENSAPLV), he focused on exploring what the olfactory dimension can contribute to the experience and intelligent design of architecture and landscape. In particular, his research aimed to grasp the contemporaneity of the olfactory sense in the built environment, its potential in the expression of the materiality and atmospheres of architecture, and its importance in environmental and political issues at a territorial scale.

France 2030