White Pages - Strasbourg - World Book Capital 2024

The White Pages installation, for reading at the foot of the cathedral this summer.

Commissioned by the City of Strasbourg as part of the World Book Capital year, the White Pages installation is gradually installing its floors, seats and canopy of sails on the Place du Château. "We're somewhere between a super urban piece of furniture and a work of art," says Yvan Detraz, architect and director of the Bruit du frigo collective, who designed the installation.

Shaped like a rectangle, the structure creates a central patio enclosed by wooden terraces, one of which will offer the public large hammocks. Another side can be used as a stage, and the third will accommodate seating and book boxes integrated into a large ribbon of wood with broken lines. The last side is where the fountain from the Place du Château is located, which will be preserved to keep things cool in summer. The whole area will be covered with some 200 suspended shade sails. We drew our inspiration from leaf dryers and paper mills for the wood ribbon," explains Yvan Detraz. It's a nod to the history of bookmaking.