Olympic opening ceremony 2024 in Paris

For 16 months, we worked with the Paname 24 team on the development of Thomas Jolly's project. How to install the public on the Pont au Change and the Pont de la Tournelle, while ensuring the solidity of these 19th and 20th century structures, or along the Seine quai du Gros Cailloux on the left bank near the Pont des Invalides. How to hang a decoration on the stone parapet of the Pont d'Austerlitz, indicating the departure point of the procession? or install the band Gojira on platforms corbelled from the facades of the conciergerie, the Garde Républicaine and Aya Nakamura on the Passerelle des Arts, while ensuring that there is no risk of the crossing structure being damaged, a light show on the Debilly footbridge, which has little transverse rigidity, and finally the structural development of the design of the wings of the Pont Saint Louis at the Eiffel Tower... Between the rediscovery of L'épure de Méry (named after the engineer who developed it in the 19th century) to assess the stability of a masonry vault for the Pont au Change, the first reinforced concrete rules for the analysis of the Pont de la Tournelle, the dynamic analysis of the Passerelle des Arts and the Passerelle Debilly, and the testing of 80-tonne concrete loads on the banks of the Seine to recover settlement values identified by the analysis, investigations to determine the depth of the load-diffusing backfill above the arch of the Pont au Change, given the sensitivity of the stone arches to this type of loading, access to historical technical documentation that enabled us to determine the nature of the stonework and joints of the Pont au Change, as well as the construction plans and site photos from the period of the Pont de la Tournelle, using the formidable documentary database of the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées and the archives of the City of Paris. ... This work was an opportunity to come face to face with Parisian architectural heritage in the exceptional setting of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games 2024.