Olivier Vadrot is a French artist and designer that studied architecture. In his work, he embraces many disciplines ranging from music, to scenography and public furniture. He is known for his mobile architecture and exploration of the ergonomy of ancient theatres. His works have been exhibited at Centre Pompidou and at the 2017 Biennale of Architecture in Lyon. Some of his projects are part of the collections owned by French cultural institutions such as in Bordeaux, , FRAC Paca in Marseille and Frac Île-de-France.

Personal life Olivier Vadrot was born in Semur-en-Auxois (France) in 1970 and currently lives in Beaune, Burgundy.Olivier Reneau, "Gentleman-designer, L'atelier d'Olivier Vadrot, Savigny-les-Beaune, France", enroute, August 2008, p. 48-49 [printed]

Career After having graduated with a degree in architecture from Lyon's school of architecture, Vadrot started out as an assistant to the Japanese architect Shigeru Ban in France. Working alongside Ban since 1998 through 2001, he took part in creating the Cap Canal project at Centre D'interprétation Du Canal De Bourgogne.Clément Nouet, "La salle de bains à Lyon, entretien avec Olivier Vadrot", archistorm, January–February 2005, pp. 77-74 [printed] He also assisted Daniel Buren in the realisation of "Construction" a site specific installation presented at the centre d’art Le Consortium in Dijon (June 5 – July 25, 1998).

La Salle de Bains Aside from his architectural experience with Ban, in 1998, he founded (together with Lionel Mazelaygue and Gwenaël Morin) La Salle de Bains, a 25sqm alternative exhibition space in Lyon, France.Clément Nouet, "La salle de bains à Lyon, entretien avec Olivier Vadrot", archistorm, January–February 2005, p. 75 [printed] Vadrot described the place as a way "to engage in a dialogue with artists of the past generation", and "to get back to uninhibited architectural and design practice". Sixty seven exhibitions were organised at La Salle de Bains in the period of 1999–2013, featuring artists such as Xavier Veilhan (2000), Olivier Mosset (2006), (2007), Claude Closky (2003), (2006), Claude Lévêque (2002) and Matthew McCaslin (2002).

Cocktail Designers Carrying on the multidisciplinary approach they had addressed during the previous years, in 2004, Vadrot and Mazelaygue founded the design group called 'Cocktail Designers', together with the two French graphic designers, Claire Moreux and Olivier Huz, with whom they had collaborated at La Salle de Bains.Clément Nouet, "Form follows Function", archistorm #18, March–April 2006, p. 77 [printed] The same year, the group presented their first collection of objects named "Form Follows Function" at the experimental Galerie Roger Tator in Lyon, France. In the show, the group questioned the relationship between art and design by hijacking everyday shapes to create new ones.Clément Nouet, "Forms follows function - entretien avec Olivier Vadrot", archistorm #18, March–April 2006, pp. 77-74 [printed] "I think some of our objects belong to both design and art, to the category we temporarily call "practical sculpture"", explained Vadrot in an interview to the French journalist Clément Nouet in 2006. "There is a long history of borrowings and references between art and design, the two disciplines mirror each other", he concluded."Plus que des références je pense que certains de nos objets appartiennent aux deux univers, design et art, dans une catégorie que nous appelons provisoirement "sculpture pratique". Il y a une longue histoire des emprunts et des références entre l'art et le design, les deux disciplines se renvoyant l'une à l'autre en miroir." in Clément Nouet, "Forms follows Function", archistorm #18, March–April 2006, pp. 76-77 [printed] According to the journalist Olivier Reneau, the group adopted "the same aesthetic and conceptual concerns as those developed by the Dutch Droog Design and Moooi who work as much with recycling forms as with ideas.""Cocktail Designers s’inscrit dans les mêmes préoccupations esthétiques et conceptuelles que celles notamment développées par les hollandais de Droog Design ou de Moooi qui oeuvrent autant au recyclage des formes que des idées." Katia Baudin-Reneau, Paul Cox and Olivier Reneau, Cocktail Designers, Les presses du réel, 2008, pp. 2-6 [printed] Following this first show, an updated version of "Form Follows Function" was also exhibited at La Chaufferie (Galerie de l'école supérieure des arts décoratifs - 5 rue de la Manufacture des Tabacs) in Strasbourg from January 13 and February 26, 2006.

Solo career and research on theatres The first structure inspired by the shape of ancient theatres implemented by Vadrot was presented at the Villa Medici in Rome during his residency at the French Academy in 2011–2012. Named Circo Minimo, the project was intended as a nod to Rome's Circus Maximus and was designed to accommodate small-scale performances and debates.Marie Vindy, “Une parenthèse romaine”, Cahier Local 19, 24 November 2013, p. 21 Subsequently, Vadrot visited several ancient theatres located in the Mediterranean region such as Delos, Priene and Syracuse, to study the ergonomy of their rows of seats. This research was expressed in the Hors Les Murs 2016 programme, organised by the Institut Français. Following these field trips, in 2016, he developed Cavea, a nomadic platform made of plywood for the National Centre for Visual Arts (CNAP) in Paris. In 2018, the project was used as a backdrop to the conferences organised by the Centre Pompidou in Paris in the frame of the exhibition “May 68 - General Assembly” as well as on the occasion of the FIAC 2018.

Initially limited to the study of Greek and Roman theatres, Vadrot's corpus gradually spread to the theatres of the Renaissance and contemporary architecture such as that designed by Le Corbusier on the roof of Unité d’Habitation. Reinterpreting the project of the Swiss architect, in June 2015, Vadrot launched Les Tribunes, a scenographic device conceived during the "Make it work/The Negotiations Theatre" event organised by the theatre of Nanterre-Amandiers.

Selected works Le Kiosque Électronique (2009) Minimo (2010) Précisions sur les Vagues, in collaboration with Célia Houdart and Sébastien Roux, coproduced by Centre dramatique national Orléans, Festival d’Avignon, Centre national de création musicale, , Stanza (2012) Coulisses (2013)Marie-Cécile Burnichon, Catherine Elkar, Sylvie Froux, “Coulisses - Conversation entre Olivier Vadrot et Claire Jacquet”, Les Pléiades - 30 ans de création dans les Fonds régionaux d'art contemporain, Flammarion, 2013 [French] La Veille, in collaboration with , Sébastien Roux, Yannick Fouassier, Laurent Poitrenaux (voice) and the students of the Comédie in Reims (2013) Totem et tattoo (2014) A Catalogue of Steps & Diary of an Image, in collaboration with DD Dorvillier (2014)Siobhan Burke, "In a Choreographer’s Series, a Moment to Showcase Her Influences", The New York Times, 26 May 2014 Le Vertugadin (2015) Les Tribunes (2015) Flash collection (2016)Lorraine Rossignol, "Avec la "Flash Collection", les oeuvres d'art entre dans les lycées", Télérama, 18 December 2017 Cavea (2016) Pentélique (2016) Faire, c’est dire, in collaboration with Tectoniques Architectes (2017)Stéphanie Sonnette, "Faire, c'est dire. Construire en bois sanglé - entretien avec Olivier Vadrot et Alain Vargas", D'architectures #253, 18 April 2017, p. 67, [French] La guérite de Marie (2018)Presented at La Tolerie in Clermont-Ferrand until December 2019 Minimo (exhibition, 2018)Olivier Lacrouts & Laura Drouet, "France. An exhibition celebrates the ephemeral architecture of Olivier Vadrot", Domusweb, 28 July 2018

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