The book, winner of the 2026 Architecture Book Prize and co-winner of the Student Book Prize from the Académie d’architecture, analyzes the impact of digital services on our daily lives, our cities, and the strategic role of the companies developing them.
In Paris, Free, an internet access provider and telephone operator, has become a central player through the deployment of its own technical infrastructure network and publicized architectural programs.
This essay covers a series of locations developed by the group: fiber optic connection points, 5G relay antennas, data centers, a coding school, housing, offices, and an incubator. It studies and maps these concrete architectures of the digital economy, in their forms and functions, from the most discreet to the most visible.
Drawing on autobiographical narrative, field observations, theoretical analyses, technical drawings, plans, and archive images, this architectural investigation describes how Free's entrepreneurial imagination and technological promises have permeated the recent evolution of a city that dreams of becoming the world capital of innovation and the start-up nation.
