L’Atelier des enfants (The Children’s Workshop) at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, now has a new look thanks to designer Mathieu Lehanneur.

The space comprises three areas: A workshop area dedicated to the youngest children from 2 to 5; a ‘workshop about an artist’ area for children from 6 to 12; and lastly, a multipurpose area.

Designed and equipped to accommodate virtually any type of activity - practical work on the floor, walls, visual and sound installations, choreographic sessions - the area includes a secure entrance, a rest area, allowing room for children to be welcomed for which the designer designed a continuous wall seat, alcoves and a wall of ‘senses’, where all that is needed is at the disposal of the children, guided by leaders to stimulate their creativity.

Lehanneur wanted to create a space for children with the impression of it being without limits or constraints:

"I wanted them to feel like they were on a huge white sheet that needed to be filled. In all of my first sketches, I had an image of a skate-park in my mind for children-artists: an object-space which is experienced like a game. A far cry from the school universe.

Floors and walls blend into one here and everything can be filled. Here, everything necessary to create is accessible but nothing is visible. Here the areas are so open that everything needs to be invented…”

Photography Hervé Véronèse.