monde n°2
Fictional Gesamtkunstwerk
World No. 2 is a fictional total-art project that forms the foundation the entirety of my work. It proposes a contemporary rereading of the Gesamtkunstwerk—the total work of art—not as a fusion of art and real life, but as the construction of a parallel, fictional, and autonomous world.
This world exists only through sketches, plans, drawings, and 3D models. This choice makes it possible to develop a coherent and demanding universe without ever slipping into a normative project imposed on reality. World No. 2 is an assumed utopia: a space for projection and research.
Its name echoes contemporary ecological discourses that claim we have only one world—the planet. World No. 2 is not a denial of this reality, but a reminder: there exists a second territory, the realm of the imagination, crucial to our ability to invent new forms.
Within World No. 2, everything can be conceived: from the object to architecture, from the building to the city. It functions as a laboratory for the real.
My pieces are coming from this universe. Each is a fragment of Monde n°2, materialized in the real world, questioning our contemporary capacity—as artists and creators—to produce durable constructions, meaningful ornament, and new forms of style at the scale of architecture and the city.
Shaping a New Ornament
World No. 2 deliberately distances itself from several dominant doctrines of the twentieth century: radical modernism, all-concrete architecture, the culture of disposability, and the marginalization of ornament. It stands in opposition to ideologically smooth surfaces and to the contemporary fear of ornament.
In this world, buildings are once again decorated. Facades carry signs, motifs, and figures. Ornament is not a superficial addition, but a shared language endowed with narrative, symbolic, and aesthetic power.
World No. 2 seeks to reconnect with the fundamental role of ornament: to tell stories and to signify. It raises a simple yet essential question: how can we ornament today without resorting to historical pastiche? What figures, what narratives, what images can inhabit our contemporary facades, objects, and architectures?
If such forms struggle to emerge collectively, it is perhaps because the second half of the twentieth century left behind a symbolic void. And yet, our present is rich with powerful themes—climate change, technological mutations, transformations of the living, and the relationship between humans and their environment. The issue is not a lack of narratives, but a lack of forms capable of embodying them.
World No. 2 is conceived as a research laboratory dedicated to identifying these themes and transforming them into motifs, figures, and architectures. A space where ornament once again becomes a poetic tool for giving form to our time, open to all those who wish to take part in it.
Engineering & construction
My work is grounded first and foremost in a process of design and construction. Daily drawing and 3D modeling play a central role: they allow me to develop, with an almost engineering-level rigor, systems and principles of assembly derived from material and technical constraints. These systems often constitute the true starting points of the works—a primitive vocabulary that I then seek to transform into décor, ornament, and ultimately narrative.
Rather than beginning with a subject to be represented, my works emerge from these constructive logics. A material, a mode of assembly, or a structural tension becomes the joint driver of form and meaning. The works are conceived as composed, added, and assembled structures, rather than as monolithic volumes sculpted by the removal of material. Assembly systems are not concealed; they are deliberately made visible and elevated to the status of decorative elements in their own right.
These systems then take their place within fictional architectures originating in World No. 2—temples, kiosks, follies—first conceived through drawing and subsequently through 3D modeling. Sculptures, capitals, ornaments, and buildings form a coherent whole, carrying meaning and symbolism.
Some of these architectures remain at the level of project, while fragments are extracted, redrawn, and materialized in the real world.
Technologies, Craft, and Materials
My work is based on the articulation between contemporary technologies and traditional craft practices. 3D modeling plays a central role: it functions simultaneously as a tool for design, planning, and verification. It prepares the real. Each of my pieces first exists in digital form, fully modeled—assembly by assembly—with precision down to tenths of a millimeter.
From these models, I produce detailed drawings that serve as the basis for a largely manual fabrication process. My practice relies on a deliberate balance: approximately 50% digital processes—3D design, 3D printing, CNC machining, laser cutting—and 50% hand fabrication—molding, assembly, modeling, and woodworking. Whenever possible, these operations are carried out directly in the studio.
Introducing plastic alongside bronze or wood is not a gratuitous contrast, but a deliberate statment. Where its disposable use represents a major problem, its persistence becomes, within the context of the artwork, a fundamental quality.
Within a logic of conservation, transmission, and permanence, plastic becomes a particularly appropriate material: robust, stable, resistant to long time spans, potentially millennial. Where bronze can be melted down, wood burned, and marble broken, plastic persists.
Used consciously, it thus becomes the paradoxical yet coherent support for an ornament conceived to endure. In order to elevate it to the status of an art material, I make a point of always pairing it with materials traditionally considered noble, such as wood or metals. This association creates a reciprocal enhancement and helps shift perceptions, preparing the ground for new uses and new material hierarchies.
History offers a revealing precedent: amber—fossilized resin and a natural polymer—is a millennial plastic that has traversed the ages as a precious material, sculpted, collected, and sacralized. What we call “plastic” today is therefore not a problem of nature, but a problem of use.