Since 2022, 7L has been supporting the Villa Medici’s Festival des Cabanes, an event that invites architects and designers to rethink modular and sustainable housing in the historic gardens of the Académie de France in Rome. 7L works alongside some of its former residents as part of its Correspondances cultural programme, which takes place within its own walls in Paris, and supports La Nuit des Cabanes in Rome – a highlight of the season with a programme of performances and conversations bringing together architects, artists and thinkers.
7L supports extramuros contemporary creation through two initiatives that showcase emerging artistic perspectives in the fields of architecture and photography – two disciplines dear to its founder, Karl Lagerfeld. The 7L Bookshop offers a bespoke selection of books that changes according to the programme and the audiences attending the events at the villa Noailles in Hyères throughout the year, and during the six months of the Festival des Cabanes at the Villa Medici in Rome.
THE 7L CABANE
MBL architectes have designed a project for two spaces at the Villa Medici. In the gardens, the 7L Cabane is a reading pavilion that invites visitors to sit back and contemplate, while in the entrance hall, 7L Bookshop x Villa Medici pre- sents a selection of books related to the themes of the Festi- val des Cabanes.
The 7L Cabane © MBL Architectes Photo: Daniele Molajoli
Imagined as a structure that is light yet monumental, the pavilion explores the hybridisation between industrial landscape and craftsmanship. The centrepiece of the pa- vilion is the metal frame, whose sloping shape recalls the silhouette of vernacular Japanese architecture. It is covered with more than 4,000 honeycomb bricks made in Lazio, linked together one by one by silver ropes that follow the incline of the roof and create a play of shadows. On the ground, a large rectangular platform is designed to host performances, readings and events, and weaves a link with the bookshop at the entrance to the Villa Medici. The pavi- lion thus constitutes a ‘lived-in roof’, a vibrant and porous skin that asserts a form of stripping down: raw materials, reversible assemblies, economy of means and seriality.
Echoing the pavilion, the 7L Bookshop takes its place at the entrance of the Villa Medici like an interior landscape in motion. Composed of stacks of loose bricks stabilised by wooden keys, it presents itself as a set of furniture-materials. Each stack becomes a module that can be moved around as required, allowing the space to be constantly reconfi- gured, between active storage and exhibition. This moving furniture creates an animated, reversible reception area that resonates directly with the pavilion’s constructive gesture. Two lightweight, industrial-style brushed aluminium tables complete the installation. The bookshop offers a selection of works on architecture, gardens and landscape, serving as textual extensions of the built project.
7L BOOKSHOP x VILLA MEDICI
The 7L Bookshop at the Villa Medici presents a selection of books chosen specially for the festival, highlighting the interactions between architecture and nature through beau tiful books exploring the work of architects, artists, photo graphers and philosophers. This autumn, the selection of books will be further enriched with publications devoted to cinema, in tune with the Villa Medici Film Festival, which will take place from 10th to 14th September 2025.
The 7L Bookshop, founded in 1999 by Karl Lagerfeld in Paris, was acquired by CHANEL in 2021. 7L stands for 7 rue de Lille, in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, but it was also Karl Lagerfeld’s favourite number. “I love this place so much that it is a part of me,” said the great couturier, an insatiable seeker of beauty and knowledge. 7L celebrates its founder’s unconditional love of books and photography. The 700m2 space brings together a bookshop dedicated to new releases in the visual arts, a library-stage where in situ creation is inspired by the contents of his personal library (housed in his former photo studio adjacent to the bookshop), as well as the Éditions 7L publishing house. The bookshop’s editorial line reflects the diversity of artistic pro duction in the 20th and 21st centuries. It sells books about photography, design, decoration and interior architecture, as well as monographs devoted to the art of fashion, ca talogues of major exhibitions, and works on gardens and ceramics.
more info: villamedici.it
