What kind of architectural masterpiece is the utopia you imagine?
In a corner of Paris, France, there is a new suburban city Cergy Pontoise - Sergy-Pontoise.
In recent years, the French city of Sergei Pontoise has become not only a popular destination for tourists from all over the world to visit Paris, but also an excellent choice for artists, fashion magazines and photographers.
This is where Axe Majeur, a building on the outskirts of Sergei-Pontoise in France, is located.
Axe Majeur contains many symbols and monuments of the city.
In 2021, one of the most watched shows in the fashion industry, Louis Vuitton's 2022 Early Spring Women's Show, chose to be held here.
In this masterpiece of architecture that harmonizes all things, water, light, wind, sand, concrete, stone and steel show a wonderful harmony between nature, space and time.
"Utopia" Axe Majeur
Axe Majeur, a large-scale art installation created by the late Israeli landscape master Dani Karavan, is full of art and humanistic atmosphere.
It is a 3.2 km long straight path.
The trail starts in the village of Serge and passes monuments to an island with beautiful views of the city of Paris.
This huge modern architectural icon consists of 12 parts – 12 sculptural columns.
They resemble a long bridge, with bright red arches colliding with picturesque views of the French suburbs. From the top of the city center, all the way to an island in the Oise River, the scenery is breathtaking.
The Axe majeur landscape complex, built in 1980, is also known as the "Central Axis".
Using perfect proportions and precise geometry, Karavan transforms the sculpture into a distinctive Parisian landmark.
Until now, in the small town of Saint-Christophe, in the 95 departments of the Paris region, the Axe majeur landscape complex is a famous tourist attraction and is considered a gem of contemporary architecture.
The shock and emblematicity of Axe Majeur passing through the city is the exclusive order aesthetic given to the French new town of Cergy-Pontoise by Dani Karavan.
Perfectly integrated with the environment, the white geometry always looks a little lonely, but it is also inviting to meditate.
Axe Majeur, a building that triggers infinite space with geometric lines, opens the show in the designer's dream of a "utopian fantasy".
Equipped with a refracted reflective floor mirror, the dream show of blue sea and blue sky is perfectly presented in front of our eyes.
Artist Dani Karavan
The person who designed the famous building Axe Majeur is the world-famous humanist artist, sculptor and garden designer - Dani Karavan.
Dani Karavan was born in Tel Aviv on December 7, 1930. He studied at the Bezaret Academy of Art in Jerusalem and the Academy of Art in Florence.
The year he graduated, he signed up for stage design and mural work in Israel.
Early works by Dani Karavan
Karavan designed his largest early sculpture in the Gegov Desert near Birsev, Israel, between 1963 and 1968.
In the seemingly endless desert, there is no one, but there is a mysterious stone tablet that seems to fall from the sky.
The wavy concrete resembles a desert sea, and next to it stands a reef-like stone pillar.
It is a hollow sculpture with a geometric stone tablet with gaps to walk through, and diffuse light penetrates into it to present regular light and shadow.
This sculpture is a monument designed for Parma's war.
In the quiet and solemn desert, Karavan's sculptures bring a touch of pyrotechnics to the desert.
People began to travel thousands of miles to drive along the narrow and lengthy paths to the empty city forged by Karavan.
Looking at this spectacular sculpture, you can also see the words carved on the walls, the words in the soldier's diary, as if you can still hear the cries and whispers of war.
Whether it is for nature or society, the significance of Karavan's sculpture is very significant. It also opened up his popularity and took a very important step.
Attention and recognition
What brought Karavan out of his homeland to the attention of the European art world was the 1971 Florence exhibition.
After this exhibition, he began to come to New York and Milan to carry out international art work.
In 1976, Karavan represented Israel at the Venice Biennale, where his career flourished.
In 1978, Karavan's artistic career reached its peak.
His work, Two Environments for Peace, brought Karavan truly out of Israel and attracted a lot of attention in the European art world.
Since then, art projects from all over the world have come to exchange and collaborate with him. Sometimes, Karavan is even in charge of four projects at the same time.
Between 1990 and 1994, Karavan built a monument entitled "Passage, Homage to Walter Benjamn" in Portbou, on the Spanish-French border in Catalonia.
This monument was created for the Jewish writer Walter Benjamn.
In 1940, Walter Benjamn was forced to commit suicide here. His life was turbulent, but he devoted his life to European literature.
Like Walter Benjamn, Karavan is not only Jewish, but also has a strong sensitivity to space.
Whether it is traditional history or surreal future, it can be constructed as the spatialism of the present and perceived by modern people.
This monumental work is a long, dark red, rust-colored tunnel. From a distance, it seems that it has been settled here for hundreds of years.
Walking along the inner staircase, it was as if his whole life had flashed frame by frame in this narrowness. And in the end, there is no way ahead, and what is reflected in front of you is a blue sky and blue sea...
This 1992-1999 work is Way to the Hidden Garden.
As the title suggests, pure white geometric buildings are regularly scattered on the "green canvas". Looking down from above, the entire group of buildings resembles a secret garden hidden in the forest.
In the corner of the meadow, there is a work composed of horizontal lines like a basketball court, which is like a devout nun, quietly guarding the land.
The story of Dani Karavan's creation
Karavan's designs are mainly inspired by historical landmarks that have disappeared.
For example, elements with a strong sense of space, such as railway tracks and trees, will appear in the process of creating these huge outdoor buildings and sculptures.
The driving force behind Karavan's creative work comes from communicating with people from all walks of life around the world.
His creative inspiration is inseparable from the collision of ideas in various cultural backgrounds.
This collision of ideas began before Karavan was 25 years old. He has always lived on a collective farm, and the experience of this time has also left a deep imprint on his work.
Interestingly, Karavan's inspiration always came out on deadlines. As a result, his patrons were always troubled by fears that he would not be able to hand in his work on time.
However, the pressure of deadlines has also become one of the driving forces that inspire. From this point of view, there seems to be no difference between artists and working workers.
Grab the pass in the name of creativity and chase the infinity and freedom ahead!