PLAYING FIELDS - European Heritage Days
PLAYING FIELDS. European Heritage Days. Geneva, September 9 to 11, 2022
FRAME AWARDS 2023 / Category: Set Design of the Year
For the European Heritage Days which took place in September 2022, several departments of HEAD – Genève were involved in a study on the memory of Charmilles football stadium. This building, which was once an important part of the Geneva landscape, has now given way to Parc Hentsch.
The Interior Architecture Department designed a project consisting of several installations inspired by the different elements of the old stadium. The superimposition of the footprint of the football field on the current site resulted in a pitch whose unique shape implied a renewed and joyful game. The scenography hosted various activities: changing rooms, scoreboards, stands and benches. The aim was to evoke football life through installations that were developed with students and to materialise the collective memory of the place in a contemporary way.
These temporary installations welcomed visitors and offered them various activities, including a football tournament with distorted rules matching the distorted geometry of the pitch, a documentary on the stadium's history made by the Film Department, a football fashion show conceived by the Fashion Department, and the distribution of Panini albums reinterpreted by the Graphic Design Department. The scenography was done with scaffolding systems and colourful panels that were afterwards dismantled and sold, without any wastage of material.