Every two years since 2014, the Fondation d'entreprise Hermès has invited professionals from a range of backgrounds to participate in the Skills Academy. Through this programme, the Foundation seeks to draw on collective intelligence to explore innovative approaches to particular materials.
For this sixth edition, dedicated to stone, the Academy invited architects to take part in the programme for the first time alongside craftspeople, engineers and designers. Over the course of eleven months, this new cohort was invited to engage with the fundamental arts of the built environment. The aim was to investigate the historical, symbolic, aesthetic, physical, economic and social dimensions of stone, in architecture as well as in urban planning and in the domestic environment. The pedagogical direction of the Academy was overseen by Franco-Lebanese architect Lina Ghotmeh, an internationally recognised figure who brings a deep ecological commitment to all of her projects.
During the first half of 2023, the Fondation d'entreprise Hermès hosted a series of monthly conferences, open to the public, each of which was led by experts on stone. Guest speakers, from historians, curators and academics to craftspeople, architects and industry experts, were invited to share their knowledge over the course of five thematic morning sessions. These morning sessions were complemented by masterclasses, reserved for Skills Academy participants only, that took the form of visits to construction sites and building projects, specialised businesses, workshops, studios, research centres and laboratories.
Finally, in the second semester, the group came together for a workshop organised by Lina Ghotmeh in the town of Saumur on the banks of the Loire: the highlight of the programme. The objective of this concluding event was to activate the collective intelligence of the participants by pooling and harnessing their diverse expertise together with the knowledge they had acquired over the course of the Academy.
Invited to sculpt blocks of tuffeau, a variety of stone emblematic of the Loire region, the Academy members together fashioned a micro-landscape by combining a range of skills, from sculpture and stereotomy to engraving and inlaying. Conceived as a living receptacle for the natural resources of the Loire, this protean installation also contains a number of elements collected along the banks of river, and is completed by an poem engraved on its sides. This collective work is now installed at the Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire, where it sits at the heart of a permanent garden designed and planted by landscape architect Bas Smets in 2023, La Forêt du futur. The result of this edition of the Skills Academy is on show in the garden throughout this year’s edition of the Festival International des Jardins, entitled "Jardin source de vie", until November 4, 2024.
