Abstract EN:

From the 1950s to the end of the twentieth century, French architecture evolves from after-war Reconstruction to urban crisis, and from the acknowledgement of the failure of « modern » urbanism to the rediscovery of the question of the city, of the history, and the foundations of the architectural discipline. This mutation which is experienced and fostered by a generation of intellectual architects trained in the 1960s in the Beaux-arts School is analysed in the thesis thanks to the interpretation of an emblematic trajectory: that of Bernard Huet. As the main actor of the intellectual renewal of the discipline, this architect held, at various periods, every major position in the field – teaching, researching, editing journals and practicing. Thanks to his open-mindedness, his culture and his didactic skill, he contributed to the progressive transformation of the architectural thought of his time. The goal of the thesis is to bring out, on one hand through the writings, the practices and the designs of Bernard Huet and his contemporaries, the changes of perspective, representations and aspirations of the French architects, and, on the other hand, the new processes through which the discipline was thought over. Oscillating, depending on the author and the period, between theory, doctrine, system of concepts, paradigm, or architectural concept, the architectural discourse has been restructured in order to enter the scholarly world of recognized academic disciplines. The thesis aims at highlighting the implications of these conceptual models both on architectural theory and on architectural practice.