Les Deux Plateaux

About

Les Deux Plateaux, commonly known as the "columns of Buren", is a work of art by Daniel Buren made with the help of architect Patrick Bouchain in the courtyard of honour of the Palais-Royal in Paris, France, in the immediate vicinity of the Ministry of Culture, the Conseil d'État and the Comédie-Française. The Palais Royal Garden has been a historic monument since 1920 and the entire estate, including Les Deux Plateaux, in 1994.

In place of what was used as a parking lot for the adjoining institutions, Daniel Buren designed a work of a voluntary urban character (asphalt and slatted steel...), which the public would invest freely — which actually happened, giving a contrast to the solemnity of the place that houses the Constitutional Council and the Ministry of Culture, where the public behaves like children climbing columns. The work, which occupies 3,000 m2 of the courtyard, consists of a mesh of 13 x 20 = 260 truncated columns (which Buren calls cylinders and which are in fact octagonal section) of white marble with white and black stripes with a single width of 8.7 cm. The cylinders are introduced into this space...