Contemporary art

Olivier made the remark concerning my yesterday’s post that some sculptures and other pieces of art should be found along the new tramway line. He’s right. I heard about it, but did not pay attention during my trip this weekend. So yesterday (Monday) I took a new ride to check out.

First I found this info on Internet:

“The design of the tramway line was incorporated into an overall artistic dimension…. creating a special place for contemporary art along the route… (it) was a joint decision made by the City of Paris and the Ile-de-France Region and backed up … by the Ministry of Culture and Communication… major, internationally acclaimed contemporary artists were invited…”

Nine works have been placed along the line in time for the opening in December last year. Here they are: So, what’s your opinion? I have mine. I would say that the “Skate Park” is OK - especially as it actually seems to be used for skating - and possibly also the “Telephone Booth”. I’m rather a friend of modern (and ancient) art and I’m happy that some opportunities are given to contemporary artists, but… I had a feeling that I lost my time (and some tax money)… and now you are losing yours!

(But I still like the tramway!)

The trams are back in Paris!

There used to be trams in Paris. From 1855 to 1938 there was an extensive tramway network. Originally horse-powered, trams later used steam, pneumatic engines and at last electricity. They largely preceded the metro which started in 1900.

There have been some tram services reopened in the suburbs the last decade, but Paris ”intra-muros” got a first new modern type of tram service only in December last year.

The metro does not propose any around-Paris-circle line, like e.g. London. This was previously offered by a train service, the so called “Petite Ceinture” (=small belt?), which also connected with the major long distance railway stations. The “Petite Ceinture” started in 1854 and more or less stopped service in 1934, meaning that it was in operation during the same period as the trams. When it was closed, buses replaced and offered the transport around Paris, slowed down by traffic jams.

I may revert to the “Petite Ceinture” one of these days, but today I will just mention that the railway tracks basically followed the Paris border. The Paris border is today rather represented by the ring road, the “Périphérique”, built in the 60’s and 70’s. Just inside the “Périphérique”, you have large avenues also surrounding Paris, going under the name of the “Boulevards des Maréchaux”.The new Paris tramway will follow these boulevards and separate grass covered tracks are constructed to be used for trams only. For the moment only the southern part of the circle is ready, but there is a decision to continue the line until Porte de la Chapelle, possibly Porte d’Asnières (see map). It will take years and create a lot of disturbance during the construction and there will still be a missing piece in the west of Paris.

I tried the new trams this weekend. Very comfortable, silent - and also fast; they have absolute priority over all other traffic. The boulevards are quite empty, it was Sunday afternoon.

Prime Meridian (French version)

Before the agreement to use Greenwich as Prime Meridian – in 1884, there were several other meridians which of course led to confusion, especially at sea. A major competitor to Greenwich was the French version. During the different conferences that were held to decide on a global common meridian, the French accepted to give up theirs on one condition; to have the meter accepted as a universal measurement - not yet quite achieved!

The French meridian was officialised in 1667 and has its starting point at the Observatoire (Paris 14th), finished in 1672 (three years before Greenwich!). The building which is exactly in a north-south axe had as architect, Claude Perrault, brother of Charles Perrault (author of Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Puss in Boots, Cinderella, Bluebeard, Hop o’ My Thumb…). It’s the world’s oldest still active observatory. I have not found a clear explanation for the choice of the place of the Observatoire. It’s interesting to see that it’s exactly in the axe of the then already exisiting Palais de Luxembourg, built on the initiative of Marie de Medici (Henry IV’s widow), who was much interested in astrology. You find the same north-south axe around the Invalides, built at the same period as the Observatoire.The “Da Vinci Code” refers to this axe, the “Rose Line”. Actually the French meridian passes well the Louvre, but not exactly where the pyramid is, whereas the St. Sulpice church is well out of the axe.To find the trace of the axe, the “Da Vinci Code” refers to the 135 “Arago plates”, 12 cm (= 4,7 inches, - the meter is not yet adapted all over) bronze disks which were placed along the axe in 1994. You still find most of them along the streets – but some have disappeared; nice pieces of collection.(Arago was a 19th century French astronomer and politician.) The axe is in Paris also visualised in the park just behind the Observatoire and by the so called “mires”, one at Montmartre (north) and one in the Montsouris Park (south). You can read that they were erected in 1806 during the reign of….- the name of Napoleon has disappeared.The meter was “invented” by the French Academy of Sciences in 1793, based on researches made at the Observatory, as being one ten-millionth of the length of the meridian. (Nowadays it’s equal to the distance traveled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299 792 458 of a second or something similar!)

The Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is today officially replaced by an international time reference, UTC, maintained by a number of atomic clocks around the world.

Wine, Balzac...

During my walk through part of the 16th arrondissement (see my different posts this week) I thought it was time for a break. I visited a Wine Museum. You can find it at the end of Rue des Eaux, the Water Street. The reason for this inappropriate name is that there used to be a thermal spring here, very much in fashion during the 17th and 18th centuries.

The museum occupies some quarries dating from the Middle Age and in the meantime used as wine cellars by a monastery previously situated on top of the hill, then abandoned. The museum opened in 1984. You can learn everything about wine, how to make it, how to store it, how to drink it… with historical references. A glass of wine is included in the entrance fee. (If you want to make it more seriously, there is even a small restaurant where wine tasting is the important issue.)

For some reason, instead of one glass, I got half a bottle of a saint-émilion grand cru. Furthermore I could taste it in nice company. After this refreshment, I visited a small house, where Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) lived 1840-47 and where he wrote the Human Comedy. The only furniture exposed is his writing table and chair, but there are a lot of manuscripts etc. When I now (it was not my first visit) looked at his writing desk, I realised that it’s a copy (or it may be the other way round) of my “blogging desk”, bought at the flea market some 30 years ago (my chair is different). He was said to write some 16 hours a day, consuming coffee in large volumes. I spend a bit less time at my desk, but I consume a number of espressos.

Balzac always owed money and did not want any unexpected visitors. One reason for the choice of this house was said to be that there was a quick exit possibility also on the back side. It leads to one of the narrowest streets still existing in Paris.

To give you an idea where to find these places, here is again a Google Earth view.

A last thing I want to show before the weekend is how useful it is to have a small car in Paris, if any. Hummers are to be avoided.

So, I wish you a nice weekend!

Benjamin Franklin

We continue with our walk trough the 16th arrondissement, this time just south of Trocadéro and more or less just in front of where is the Eiffel Tower, on the opposite side of the Seine River. This area is called Passy and was a separate village until 1860.

I’m not going to tell the story of Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) here, but only what is more related to him and to France and more particularly to this area.

Franklin spent almost ten years here, arriving in 1777. He lived just behind the reddish small “hôtel” that you can see in the middle of the painting. Everything looks today different, only the small “hôtel” is still there (today the Turkish Embassy). Together with other members of the American delegation, sent to France to negotiate peace with Great Britain, Franklin was invited to live in a castle-like building, now disappeared, at the expense if a rich pro-American French aristocrat, Le Ray de Chaumont.

Franklin was already well known and extremely popular in France (which he had visited before). On his way from Nantes (where his ship arrived) to Paris, crowds lined the roads to acclaim him. He was as popular when he finally left – he even got a street named after him already in 1791. In the meantime, Franklin, acting as American ambassador, had achieved that the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, leading to freedom from Great Britain. He and his colleagues obtained by the way so much from France in money and arms that the country almost got ruined, one of the major reasons to the French Revolution a few years later.

I have only two photos to show you today: The building you see has a medallion and an inscription indicating that this was the place where Franklin lived and also that it was the first place in France where a lightning rod was installed.The lightning rod was of course invented by Franklin, as were the bifocals (not yet the progressive version), the Franklin stove, the catheter… He discovered the existence of the Gulf Stream, he proposed a central governing council for Europe, the daylight saving time… and, among many other things, he was a great statesman!

Something more about architecture

There will not be any other post on architecture this week – after this one, but I wanted to show some last things from my 16th arrondissement walk the other day.

It is surprising to find some radically different kind of buildings, built during the same period as what have seen in my latest two posts.

In the beginning of the 20th century, when the Art Nouveau was still in fashion and some more traditional types of houses were still built, an architectural movement tried to go in a clearly opposite direction. One of the “opposition leaders” was Le Corbusier (1887-1965), born in Switzerland, but later choosing French citizenship.

Le Corbusier’s real name was C-E Jeanneret and he took the pseudonym from his maternal grandfather’s name. Le Corbusier was a visionary. He did thus not believe in the Art Nouveau, nor in the later Art Deco. He thought that the new industrial age should be represented by a brand-new architecture, which could be called Industrial Style. People needed space, fresh air, simple comfort, hygiene… He talked about “machines of living”. One of his ideas was to build enormous skyscrapers (those he saw in New York were too small), surrounded by a lot of green space. He wanted to transform the Paris centre in this way. This remained a vision, but he designed some big apartment houses, on pillars (for the air to circulate), with gardens on the top (now closed). Basically everything should be very rectangular and simple.

Most of his visionary ideas are today criticised, forgotten…, but here you can see some examples of what he accomplished (photos found on Google). (The church is not so quite rectangular.)

What we can find by Le Corbusier in the 16th arrondissement (see below) is a rather modest building. Through one of the windows, you can also see a chair, designed by him (the photo on the top). The place can be visited (but it was closed when I passed by). Another architect, who designed in a similar style, was Robert Mallet-Stevens (1886-1945). Together with Le Corbusier and some others he founded “l’Union des Artistes Modernes”. Here you can see one of a few buildings he has created in the same area. The one I pictured is fairly freshly repainted; its neighbour is not, and I believe that whether you like this kind of architecture or not - it certainly needs to be very well maintained. You will find as well the Le Corbusier as Mallet-Steven buildings on rue Blanche.

The original photos can be found on my other blog, "Peter - photos".

I got another reward yesterday, see below!

Amédée Reward

Today I got another reward! Attributed by Olivier and his special mascot, Amadée! Sincere thanks for this additional honour!

Some more buildings

During my walk to find what Guimard had created in the area (Paris, 16th arrondissement, yesterday’s post), I took some pictures of some other buildings constructed more or less during the same years. As you can see, the styles are very different.

As I mentioned yesterday, this southern area of the 16th ardt. was until the end of the 19th century very village-like and the then prevailing Haussmannian rules, strictly applied in the Paris centre, did not have to be followed here. This gave the architects some more creative freedom. We find thus a mixture of some very classical buildings, often with some extraordinary decoration, and also of some more adventurous creations. One of the buildings is connected to the Algerian Embassy (the Embassy is elsewhere). I believe you can guess which one. I show you also two examples of some still remaining village-like private streets, of which you find many examples here. You still find a lot of one-family houses, with gardens. Isn’t this something to dream of? An own house, with a garden, sometimes even a swimming pool, and still so close to what the big city can offer. (If you are not invited, you cannot enter; I took the photos from behind the closed gates.)

I have again put the original photos on my other blog, "Peter - photos".

... and I got a new award yesterday, see below.

Power of Schmooze Award

I got a new award today! Sincere thanks to Krystyna!

The 'Power of Schmooze Award' is The Award for bloggers who “effortlessly weave their way in and out of the blogosphere, leaving friendly trails and smiles, happily making new friends along the way. They don’t limit their visits to only the rich and successful, but spend some time to say hello to new blogs as well. They are the ones who engage others in meaningful conversations, refusing to let it end at a mere hello - all the while fostering a sense of closeness and friendship".

Hector Guimard

I have already previously mentioned and shown some of the famous Paris metro entrances my Hector Guimard (1867-1942). Guimard did also a lot of other things. He was basically an architect, working during the Art Nouveau period (with names like Horta, Gaudi), but not really pretending to belong to the movement.
He lived and worked in the southern part of the 16th ardt. and here you can find a great concentration of buildings he designed, although there are a few other ones around Paris and in the province. (If you feel for a nice walk, at the end of the post you can find a list and where to find these buildings.)

Typical for Guimard and Art Nouveau is to combine the building structure and the decoration, using steel and sometimes armed beton (which both were new then). The later Art Deco built first and then added the decoration.

Guimard was in fashion for a rather short period around the turn of the centuries and a lot that he created has later disappeared. He is now again in fashion and today we seriously regret all that has got lost, including a number of metro station entrances and buildings. One remarkable creation was a concert hall (also in the 16th arrondissement, “Humbert de Romans”) which was demolished only after a few years (the owner went bankrupt).

Guimard became famous at 30 with the building of Castel Béranger. This was just before he created the metro entrances and you can clearly recognise the style.Most of the remaining buildings cannot be visited and some are even difficult to see from outside as they sometimes are in small, private, streets. This part of Paris is full of those (fashionable and expensive). I managed to squeeze in to some of them, but not the way I would have liked. Narrow streets and parked cars make it also difficult to get the views you wish.

One building was temporarily open for public, Hôtel Mezzera, from where I have also some pictures of the interior. Remarkable is that Guimard designed everything, inside decoration, furniture, lamps, stained glass windows… There were 30 Guimard buildings within the area I visited. 17 remain and they are today classified, at least for the exterior part, in a few cases also for the interior. This area was very village like when these houses were built. That gave more space for innovation than if the Haussmannian rules from the centre of Paris would have to be followed. I will revert with some other architectural innovations from the same area. It’s worth looking on Guimard’s work in detail and I would recommend that you have a look on the original photos on my other blog, “Peter – photos”.