Pixels under construction
Build, explore, imagine: what if video games became a genuine space for architecture and creation? A futuristic city, a 2D maze… For its new season (until 3rd October 2027), e-LAB invites you to journey through worlds where spaces are designed, transformed and freely reinvented.
From building games to mazes, from realistic environments to the most unexpected architectures, each world becomes a testing ground, balancing creative freedom with design constraints. By manipulating spaces, narratives and perspectives, everyone has fun devising new ways of inhabiting the virtual.
Between exploration, creativity and play, this immersive, playful experience reveals how video games feed our imagination and reshape our relationship with space.
Practical information
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€15 | €12 | Our prices
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From age 7
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Trilingual exhibition (French, English, Spanish)
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The Cité is open from Tuesday to Sunday 10.00 am - 7.00 pm until 30 August.
Plan your visit
This exhibition area can't be accessed by lift (level 2).
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© V. Besnard / EPPDCSI Overview
You shape the space: it’s your turn to play. Start with an overview of the selection, discovering LEGO® Voyagers, Teardown, Portal 2, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 (available with a facilitator present only) and Tiny Glade. Observe, alter, destroy and build your environment in this introduction to the season “Pixels under construction”. Take the controls.
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© V. Besnard / EPPDCSI Retro games
Since when have players been building in video games? The retro zone, featuring Tetris, Arkanoid and Rampage, revisits the concepts of construction and deconstruction from the earliest days of the video game industry. These classics laid the groundwork for the history of video games that followed.
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© A. Robin / EPPDCSI Tablet games
When the scenery becomes a puzzle, how do you solve it? Take your time to put your grey matter to the test with four games that explore other ways of building. Mini Metro, Storyteller, Lumino City and Monument Valley 3 invite you to think outside the box to untangle the puzzles of your environment.
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© A. Robin / EPPDCSI Atypical games
Experience the loss of your bearings in topsy-turvy worlds: will you be able to find your way? You'll need to scale a brutalist trap in Beton Brutal, defy the laws of reality in Viewfinder, wreak havoc in Once Upon A KATAMARI, or wander about upside down in Manifold Garden. So many ways to grapple with disorienting architecture.
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© V. Besnard / EPPDCSI Off-screen
Extend the game between the real and the virtual! The Off-screen zone broadens your view of video gaming through everything built up around it. DIY, creative hobbies or final-year projects: observe the different forms video games take beyond the screen.
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© A. Robin / EPPDCSI Decryption zone
Have you ever followed the construction of a video game level? How do creators structure your experience with a controller in hand? Take a fresh look at the games in the selection through the Decryption zone and discover the behind-the-scenes work of level design.