Philippe Starck invites the public of the Musée Carnavalet-Histoire de Paris to embark on an overground voyage, from Paris to Paris, the city to which he is anchored. This surprising journey, oscillating between the real and the imaginary, had never previously been attempted.

From one port of call to another, the “visitors-travellers-passengers” have a constantly renewed experience owing to an original scenography conceived with Philippe Starck.

 

Paris is pataphysical.” is a tour which makes its way between public spaces and tourist sites (the Eiffel Tower, the Canal Saint-Martin, the Parc de la Villette), seats of power (the Elysée Palace), and spaces of sociability (the Bain-Douches night club, the Caffè Stern restaurant…), using imaginary and quirky pataphysical explanations – Pataphysics being the science of imaginary solutions. Each port of call transfigures an universal story. The observation of the elements (wind, water, flows and energies…), of dreams and/or nightmares, of the solitude of power, of festive climaxes, of the strangeness of beauty… transports the public through unique intensity variations.

In his youth, Philippe Starck fled school to hide in the parks and under the carriage entrances of Paris. One of them was that of the Musée Carnavalet, where he found the inspiration for some of his drawings. For this visionary creator of international renown, Paris has always been the setting for numerous works: interior design and architecture, night venues, restaurants, hotels, museums, cultural places, public transport and stations, shops, as well as many everyday objects, that can be of use and/or pay homage to Paris and to Parisians such as street furniture, photobooths, or even the Olympic medal.
 

For this unique exhibition at the Musée Carnavalet, Philippe Starck has explored two kinds of mysteries: those that Paris holds and those that he has hidden, intentionally or not, and continues to conceal in his Parisian creations. It is thus a poem/exhibition made up of the marvels and mysteries of Paris. Besides, it is as Regent of the College of Pataphysics that Philippe Starck guides us on a phantasmagorical visit.