Paper cathedral was originally designed for Le STAP (salon des arts et des techniques du papier) in Lavaur (81). The initial idea was to symbolically bring the cathedral of St. Alain of Lavaur into the exhibition space of the chapel. The large within the small. Based on a faithful model of St. Alain’s cathedral, and then using deformations, the cathedral appears to float on a cloud. The cathedral’s deformed buttresses evoke the cooling fins of an engine, shifting the religious reading of the edifice into a technical register.
In contrast, the transparency of the paper gives the impression that this membrane is an exuvia, the calcified remains of a moult.