In order to understand the issues raised by transparency, it is important to understand that the requirement for transparency is consubstantial with the emergence of democracy. Democratic transparency allows two things. First of all, it fights against the secrecy attached to the arbitrary decisions of the monarchies, excluding large parts of the population from the political decision making whilst absolving the decision-makers of responsibility for justification. Secondly, democratic transparency is based on the idea that individuals with political life have all the information necessary to make a clear and informed decision.
In order to answer the question of “Political Transparency” it seemed necessary to create a space for exchange and debate, between citizens and politicians, in a public space.To answer these different themes we propose the concept of “Politic festival”. This festival breaks down into 3 phases: April 1st to April 30th: thanks to the PoliticalBarApp, citizens can find out about the political figures who will represent them during the summer session of parliament for each of the Cantons. He will then be able to vote which politicians he most desires to meet in order to be able to discuss with them during the 2nd phase of the festival. May 1st to May 30th: Launch of the PoliticalBar, the citizen can follow via the application which politicians will be present on which days during this period. May 31st – June 18th: Summer session in the Swiss parliament. Citizens can follow the debates live from the PoliticalBar, where the concentric space promotes discussion. In the PoliticalBar of Bern a politician is invited every day to take the place of the Barman.
The structure of the building is composed of a wooden frame repeated every 2 meters.The beams on each side of the frame delimit the space reserved for citizens, while the space between the interior ends of the frames delimits the space of the politician / bartender. The idea of putting the politician in the place of the bartender is to reaffirm that his role is to be at the service of the people. Its central position in relation to the plan reinforces this idea of servitude with the structure (cage), but also of exchange since it is at the center of the citizens to promote dialogue.The Political Bar is a pavilion divided into 2 spaces with different uses. The central, longitudinal space is dedicated to confrontations between two parties who do not have the same opinion on a subject. Each of the parties can sit on one side of the bar, which allows a frontal dialogue between the two opinions. In this case, the role of the bartender becomes that of the mediator, he controls the debate by allowing everyone to express themselves and give their opinion.
The side spaces are dedicated to open discussion and questions from citizens directly to the bartender. This takes up the idea of Greek theaters with a concentric space where the bartender becomes the actor, but here the crowd can directly interact with him.