Through September 7, 2026, the Société française des architectes (SFA) is hosting the 8th edition of the Henry Jacques Le Même Prize, a writing competition titled “Architecture à la lettre – a place, a text.” This is a unique opportunity for students, architects, writers, and enthusiasts to blend the written word with the built environment.

🎯 The goal: To reestablish the dialogue between architecture and writing

While literature has often drawn inspiration from painting or music, architecture remains largely unexplored territory. This prize aims to stimulate a sensitive and original reflection on a built space through a literary text.
The jury will be looking for:
✅ A nuanced understanding of a building (the subject must be an existing structure).
✅ High-quality writing, regardless of genre (short story, essay, poetry, etc.).
✅ A fresh perspective on the space and the experience of it.

More info

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Arte.tv regularly posts new documentaries online. We’ve put together a selection of architecture-related titles for you.

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The pitch:

Maud Dugrand’s book by Maud Dugrand is a story that chronicles the democratic and participatory journey of a small village in the Drôme region. In 2014, a citizen-led slate was elected. During its term, residents were actively involved in municipal operations. The author, a journalist and native of the village, traces the journey of this collective from its inception to the end of its term in 2020.

Why this book? 

The novel format is ideal for a light read that nonetheless explores a pressing democratic issue. Regardless of our status, we are all affected by local politics. It is the kind of politics that most directly impacts our daily lives.

Doc's Review 

If you’re interested in collaborative urban planning or simply in stories of citizen resistance, this book is for you. And who knows? Maybe it will inspire you to launch a participatory project in your own city…

You can find this book in the reference section among our top picks!

Click HERE to learn more

The magazine *Habitante*, which has long sought to explore the diversity of ways of thinking and shaping the world, is ceasing publication after several years of service.

To mark this milestone, the publisher is offering an exceptional 60% discount on the remaining issues. This is a unique opportunity to acquire an archive rich in insights and inspiration, or to discover (or rediscover) this magazine at an unbeatable price.

Where can I find the issues?
Visit audimat-edition.fr to view the offer using the code ENSA and place your order before supplies run out.

From June 28, 2025, to January 5, 2026, the Rouen Museum of Fine Arts hosted a retrospective dedicated to Maxime Old, a leading figure in 20th-century interior architecture. To mark the occasion, the museum launched “The Maxime Old Laboratory, ” a unique initiative developed in collaboration with third-year students from theENSA Normandie, as part of the “Situation” workshop .

Under the guidance of three instructors— Dominique Lefrancois, Sophie Cambrillat, and Kacha Legrand —the students took on an exciting challenge: reimagining Maxime Old’s furniture. Their work resulted in original designs that blend historical accuracy with contemporary boldness.

Don’t miss it: these unique pieces are now on display at theENSA Normandie Documentary Center. It’s a wonderful opportunity to discover how interior architecture interacts with student creativity, drawing inspiration from the legacy of Maxime Old.

About the authors

Guy Bloch-Champfort, journalist, is a specialist in 20th-century decorative arts and the work of Joan Mitchell. He is the author of numerous books, including Décorateurs des années 60-70 (2015) and Designers et créateurs des années 80-90 (2022), published by Norma.

Sophie Cambrillat is an architect. She is a lecturer and researcher at the École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Normandie (Normandy National School of Architecture).

Tanit Quillé, daughter of Henri Quillé, is an architect and founder and president of the Association for the Preservation of the Work of Henri Quillé.

Bloch-Champfort, G., Cambrillat, S., & Quillé, T. (2025). Henri Quillé : Formentera. Norma Éditions.

Where can you find it?
Available at theENSA Normandie documentation center.

Want to share your favorites? Write to us at poledocumentaire@rouen.archi.fr

Thursday, March 26, 2026, from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m., at theENSA Normandie Documentary Center, the editorial committee of the journal transversale, histoire: architecture, paysage, urbain will present the ninth and latest issue, published in December 2025, on the theme of Journeys, Interweaving, Hybridization: A Global History of Architecture and Urbanism.

This issue is coordinated by Léonore Dubois-Losserand, researcher at EVCAU (ENSA Paris-Val-de-Seine), Marie Gaimard, researcher at ATE, and Gilles-Antoine Langlois, researcher at EVCAU (ENSA Paris-Val-de-Seine).

For the first time, the cross-disciplinaryreview isco-produced in partnership with ENSA Paris-Val-de-Seine,ENSA Normandie, the EVCAU laboratory, and the ATE laboratory.

More information about the journal HERE.

The event will be accompanied by a gourmet coffee break.

Come to the reading room at the Documentation Center!

visual: cover of issue no. 9 of the Transversale magazine , 2025 – © Fondation Le Corbusier

This book is an extension of the Materia architectures exhibition held at the Pavillon de l'Arsenal in 2025. It follows the same structure and is a continuation of the Fibra architectures (2019) and TerraFibra (2021) exhibitions and books dedicated to contemporary architecture using earth, stone, and plant fibers.

It follows the structure of the exhibition with three chapters dedicated to these three materials, each of which documents the 40 finalist projects for the Matera Award.

The projects are intended to be rooted in the local area and promote traditional craftsmanship and local industries, without neglecting new regulations on carbon footprints and material sobriety.

The book is intended as an educational manifesto to inspire, share, and convince architects, craftsmen, project owners, and students.

The exhibition is a co-production of the Pavillon de l'Arsenal, amàco, Les Grands Ateliers, and the Compagnons du Devoir et du Tour de France.

Tuesday, March 10, 2026 – The documentation center welcomes twenty-three first-year students from Le Corbusier High School, accompanied by their mechanical engineering teacher, Olivier Valery, and Dalila Azouz, a librarian.

This visit is part of the "Les cordées de la réussite" program, which allows secondary school students to receive support from a higher education institution.

High school students are tasked with building a full-scale model of a bus shelter equipped with a photovoltaic power system and an autonomous lighting system. They will bring their sketches with them to explain their project.

Théo Vinceslas, lecturer and researcher atENSA Normandie, will spend the morning assisting the high school students with their work and offering his expertise on the choice of materials.

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Sociologist Jean-Louis Violeau, a specialist in the field of architecture, returns with a book that questions the authorship of architects. Drawing on contemporary examples, the author poses a thousand questions: "Can we talk about authorship in architecture? What does it mean to build? Who is the author? Can we talk about an author in a collective work? Can a building be a work of art? ..."

These are legitimate questions, and it's all the more important to address them in the new context of the arrival of Artificial Intelligence.