2017

French Pavilion, Guest of Honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair

As the guest of honor at the 2017 Frankfurt Book Fair, France organized a series of events surrounding the fair. At the initiative of the Institut français, we worked to design the welcome pavilion and to highlight the French language as a space of hospitality in its relationship with other languages, particularly that of the host country: German. Thus, a visual language was developed based on cultural exchange. The logo’s shape evokes a bilingual book. This same principle is reflected across all the event’s informational materials. The scenography designed by Éric Jourdan and Denis Coueignoux transforms the pavilion into a library—a framework and signage system bringing together the vast diversity of Francophone creativity in a single space. The wooden structure extending throughout the pavilion serves as the unifying thread for all built elements: partition walls between the different themes, informational displays, tables, and backdrops form the containers of a vast thematic library showcasing the immense richness of Francophone publishing. The warm atmosphere emanating from these elements is contrasted by highly visible signage more reminiscent of an urban center than a cozy interior. The strong digital presence turns it into a sort of user-friendly fab lab. The pavilion is reinforced by a number of extensions that echo these design choices within the fair, but also throughout the city. This complex serves as a vast laboratory exploring the linguistic relationship between French, German, and other languages. In this sense, the project celebrates the joy and richness of the encounter between differences, as well as the symbolic hospitality that a language can embody.

Graphic design team — Ruedi Baur, Denis Coueignoux, and Simone Burth Scenography
design team — Denis Coueignoux, Éric Jourdan, and the ESADSE Master’s students