Chaotic arrangement : Open house at Cercle Cité

The Cercle Cité open house, spread over two afternoons this year, offers a wide audience the chance to discover its historic architecture, with its main entrance, its vestibule, and the Bel- Étage with its rooms and lounges. Guided tours in four languages will introduce visitors to the history and architecture of the Cercle Cité.

Located on the Place d'Armes, the Cercle Cité is a central landmark in Luxembourg City, as well as an international cultural centre, where heritage meets contemporary culture. Built in 1904 and 1905, the building reflects Luxembourg's social life at the beginning of the 20th century, making it a place of remembrance, celebration and commemoration. Its walls witnessed the darkest hours of the Nazi occupation, but also the joys of the Liberation. In the following decade, the Cercle Cité became intrinsically linked to the country's industrial development, in particular by hosting the tribunal of the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the forerunner of the European Union.

In keeping with the theme of the 2023 European Heritage Days, Living Heritage, and the Cercle Cité's cultural programme, which bridges history and contemporary art, in which new technologies play a central role, this year's immersive sound piece Chaotic Arrangement for 66 Voices by artist Axel Crettenand (1989, CH) will enliven the Grande Salle of the Cercle Cité during the two-day open house.

Chaotic Arrangement for 66 Voices is a device designed to translate the unpredictable behaviour of heat in a fluid into a chorus of voices. It consists of a tank containing a liquid subjected to a point source of thermal energy and in which twelve thermometers are immersed; these communicate their data in real-time to a programme specially designed to translate this information into MIDI signals, which are finally synthetised into human voices.

The anthropomorphic voices are orchestrated by the random behaviour of heat and consequently manifest the invisibility of chaos in the form of a non-periodic and potentially infinite song.

This sound will resonate, travel and traverse spaces and architecture, inviting the public to discover Cercle Cité's heritage, as well as encountering a highly technological sound piece.

Free guided tours of the Bel-Étage :

14:00 (DE/LU)
15:00 (FR)
16:00 (EN)

Venue: Cercle Cité - main entrance, Place d'Armes
Free admission, no registration required