Neuf Plâtre
A building by OMA / Rem Koolhaas

More than a century separates the gesture of the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas from that of the Frenchman Samuel Menjot de Dammartin who, in 1891, erected the Parisian building at 9 rue du Plâtre. The proposal of Rem Koolhaas, co-founder of the OMA agency, nestles in the hollow of this building, which rose out of the ground in the middle of the industrial revolution. It requalifies this former warehouse in the Marais, built for the needs of the nearby Hôtel de Ville Bazaar, into a production and exhibition machine for Lafayette Anticipations - Fondation d'entreprise Galeries Lafayette.

From the first exchanges with the OMA agency and its think tank AMO in 2012, through to the last weeks of construction in the autumn of 2017, Book 9 Plaster traces the stages of construction of a tool-building dedicated to accompanying, producing and presenting the works of its time. In an interview, Rem Koolhaas evokes the conceptual, artistic, social and political issues that led to the architecture of his first Parisian building, while Bas Princen's photographic works take a sensitive look at the successive transformations of space.

An obvious work, 9 Plâtre shows the principles of an art space open to the city and to all audiences. It marks the beginning of an artistic program dedicated to the meeting of practices and thoughts.