Rough Philanthropy

Walking along the Rue Jeanne d'Arc in the 13th arrondissement it would be easy to pass by a genuine piece of social history without noticing anything exceptional. At number 45, directly opposite the quaint and attractive houses of the Villa Auguste Blanqui, stands the first social housing project built in the city, a collection of small apartments which were paid for by a man of fortune to house the unfortunate.

A plaque on the front of the building shows that it was run by an organisation called the Societé Philanthropique (who still manage the building today), and the city of Paris have helpfully put a sign in the street outside giving an outline of the story, but what is most striking about the structure is the rough brickwork of the facade. This is social housing at its most basic, clean and functional accommodation, but devoid of any decorative features that may have encouraged the poor to stay a little too long.

It was a rich banker named Michel Heine who paid for this construction through his Fondation Heine charity. He donated 600,000 Francs to the Societé Philanthropique and asked them to build a home for the 'deserving poor'. This was very much the philosophy of the Societé Philanthropique who believed (and apparently still believe) in helping the poor to help themselves, funding projects that help people get through difficult moments, to rebuild lives, or simply where the old could see out the rest of their days in dignity.

Michel Heine was an interesting man, somebody who spent many years in the USA and married into the Richelieu dynasty (he was eventually buried in the family tomb). He knew and gave financial support to Sarah Bernhardt, calling her his 'cochon doré' (golden pig!). Heine's reaction to the building he financed is not documented, but it is possible that it was severe enough to ensure that no such buildings were put up again. Later constructions managed by the Societé Philanthropique all contained decorative elements, and it is suspected that the rich benefactors who paid for them did not want to be associated with such basic, functional structures. After all, it was their names which were often featured at the entrance.

For more details on this building, see my post on Bricks in Paris.

What's in a Name?

As Jim and Mitch recently pointed out in their fascinating Designslinger blog, many residential buildings have very visible names on them. They are placed there for a variety of reasons, but as time goes by the reasons become less and less clear until they eventually become an additional mystery in the patchwork of the city. In Paris it is rare to see residential buildings given quaint, pretty names like those in Chicago featured on Designslinger, but occasionally names can still be seen, like on the building pictured above on the Passage Thière behind the Place de la Bastille.

With Parisian buildings often heavy with sculpture and decoration, it was perhaps felt unnecessary to weigh them down even further with names. In comparison, Chicago's sometimes austere structures perhaps needed softening with a picturesque and evocative title. The building I have featured here though is named for other reasons. The name, Leon Mager, signifies not only the person who paid for the construction but also acts as a clear entranceway to the factory owned and managed by the same person, which was situated in the courtyard behind.

Today the factory has all but disappeared but the impressive residential section is still firmly in place, as is of course the name. Curiously, the Leon Mager business still seems to be in existence, and although it continues to operate from the original address, it is simply named Mager today. The company website is designed to give the establishment a modern spin, and no mention is made of the history of the enterprise nor of the forefather who left his name so visibly on the face of the city.

Note: For more information on the architectural elements of this building, see the post I wrote on my Bricks in Paris blog. In some ways these two posts show why I felt it necessary to launch a spin-off blog; one to deal with the technical aspects of (brick!) buildings, and one to deal with the stories or curiosities I find around them. In today's day and age, recycling should also be something to be encouraged too!

Another Brick in the School

At the dawning of the 20th century Paris was waking up to a changed landscape. As the new social housing arrived in previously sparsely populated parts of the city, more infrastructure became essential to serve the new communities, in particular schools. As was the case with the HBMs (Habitations à Bon Marché), it is interesting once again to note that they often incorporated original and decorative designs. One of the most unusual and fascinating of all such structures in Paris can be seen near Sauvage's appartment block.

The plot is in a rhomboid form, and comprises two different, but connected schools. The schools are linked by a surprisingly bucolic playground in which a copse of mature trees can be seen reaching above the buildings. What is of most interest however is the external skin of the buildings. The school is contained within a continuous brick wall which runs around four streets, but for most of its length, this is no standard brick wall.

Before examining this particular school further, a word about education in general at the time. Whilst the hygienists had ensured a revolution in social housing at the end of the 19th century, reformers had also succeeded in making major changes in the world of education. The most important advance was the Ferry law of 1882 which made schools secular, free and obligatory for all children between the ages of 6 and 13. It also insisted on military exercises for boys and needlework for girls, but this aspect has largely been forgotten today!

The crucial element of the law was the separation of church and state, something which still provokes debate today but of which the French are on the whole intensely proud. As the church had previously been the major provider of education to the young in Paris and France as a whole, it meant that the state now had to undertake a large building project for new schools. They were now to become the major driving force of social mobility, an equal chance for both sexes and all social classes to improve themselves and the means by which the poorest members of society could dream of a different future. Was it to inspire this nascent generation that so many of the new schools incorporated triumphant, decorative touches?

The principal features of the twin Rouanet Infant and Junior schools are the curved, art deco style facade of the infant school, the large layered chimney that sprouts up behind this and the intricate brickwork design along the majority of the walls. It is this brickwork though which is the most striking and unusual, with the large three-story street facing walls being covered in a diamond criss-cross pattern. If this pattern seems familiar, it is because it is seemingly based on a medieval design known as the Diapper style. Traditionally, as can be seen on Henry VIII’s Hampton Court Palace, this design was created using different coloured bricks, but the twist on this school building is that the effect is three-dimensional, with the diamond forms jutting out from the flat wall.

A Diapper pattern wall at Hampton Court, England

The Diapper pattern, Rue Championnet, Paris 18eme

The newly educated young were being taught to think for themselves, but this also meant that they could learn to get organised and protest. Seemingly to push them further still, a zone was created for the display of posters and messages on one side of this school unit. This space is still in use today, offering a thick, colourful noise of mixed messages - a new album, an upcoming concert, a meeting to discuss the crisis, Asian furniture bargains and a celebration of 10 years of revolution in Venezuela. It's a chaotic collage, where the voices mirror the muddled unintelligable din of the children in the playground behind.

Note: The three items in this series of posts are in the same district of Paris and easily visited in one go.


A: The school buildings are near Rue Championnet
B: The collection of HBMs are near Rue André Messager
C: Sauvage's interesting HBM is on Rue des Amiraux

Another Brick Lane

(Rue de Pontoise, 75005)
After declaring my love for brick on this blog, like an obsessed suitor I've now started to see it popping up all over the city. Along the Rue de Chateaudun a red chimney stack spine running up through the grey stone side of a building. Opposite, in a structure being rehabilitated, flashes of brick nudity on partially undressed walls. Walking aong one street though, I discover a fascinating trio of brick constructions which reveal much about the history of the material in Paris.

The Rue de Pontoise in Paris runs down to the Seine across the Boulevard St Germain from just adjacent to the Mutualite building. A rather insignificant street, it nevertheless offers several points of interest. The most well known structure in this passage is the Piscine Pontoise, a swimming pool designed by the architect Lucien Pollet in 1933. Whilst the brick façade is of a rather standard design, it is inside that the architect hid the jewells. Art deco tiling runs throughout the building, but what catches the eye most are the two balconies surrounding the pool, each offering individual changing units. This unusual structure gave a melancholic and slightly threatening backdrop to Kieslowski’s film "Bleu".

Behind the Piscine Pontoise you can just catch glimpses of the newly renovated Collège des Bernardins, a medieval monastry and centre of learning. The spotlessly new terracotta tiles on the roof of this building give an attractive background to the Piscine, but what really catches my eye is this magnificent brick chimney, stretching up to catch the last rays of afternoon sun.

Either side of the piscine are two more fascinating structures. On the corner of the Rue de Pontoise and the Boulevard St Germain, a building cut away from its bretheren and left to stand and guard this spot alone (see photo at the beginning of the post). From this angle, it gives a very curious perspective, appearing almost knife thin, but what interests me most is how it displays parts of the construction that were originally designed to be hidden away. Behind the classic Haussmannian façade we can now see the rear of the building and the rather shameful brick wall and bathroom windows. I’m not sure what would have originally hidden this view, but it feels almost voyeuristic to observe it today.

Flanking the piscine on the other side, a more typical later use of brick, but this time in a most unusual design. From the early decades of the 20th century, brick was the material of choice for municipal buildings, and many schools appeared sporting this element. Typically, these structures were in art deco or more modernist forms, but the school in the Rue de Pontoise is in a decorative, italianate form. The building features many elements typical of this style, such as projecting, over-hanging eaves and arch-headed windows. Even the brickwork is more ornamental than is usual, incorporating a fresque, and a wide selection of coloured bricks, ranging from deep blues to delicate pinks. It is further evidence if evidence is needed of just how flexible and multi-functional this material is.

Note:
If you are interested in brick and find yourself in this area, two other structures should be of interest. Firstly, a fantastic and imposing ‘ilot’ building behind the Maubert Mutualité market on the Boulevard St Germain. Secondly, further along the Boulevard Saint-Germain at number 57, the Ecole Supérieure des Travaux Publics.

…and the Baron Brick (Part 2)

(Ctd from Part 1)

There is something intrinsically comforting about the impeccably designed, immensely tactile brick. Thousands of years of experience have made them hand-sized, enabling a builder to grasp one in one hand and still have another hand free to apply the trowel of cement. The metallic scrape of the trowel on the brick’s surface, then the chink of one brick being placed on top of another is an urban symphony. In the hand they offer a satisfying, not too heavy weight, a scratchy roughness and a warm smell of burnt-pink dustiness. They are one of man’s ultimate creations, so much so that today they look and feel like an extension of nature.

Walking forward in time along the Rue de la Tour des Dames towards the Trinité church, my heart leaps as I see two brick buildings. At Number 11, a 19th century house, and sitting opposite at Number 16, pure 20th century industrial. The house is a different creature to the ladies at the top of the street, but this is not to say that the building is free from adornment. The Flemish-style gables and cream trimmings set against the carnelian brick red make this a most handsome structure. Across the street, a gutted electricity building caught on the cusp of art-deco and modernist. Constructed in several materials, it uses brick as decoration, perhaps to present a kind of working-class solidarity, or perhaps just to mirror the house opposite. These were buildings designed for a purpose; one to provide electricity, and one as a machine for living in.

Like their sisters at the top of the street, neither of these buildings functions today according to the original intended purpose. Number 16 was recently ceded by the EDF electricity company to the city of Paris, and is currently home to an information centre on renewable energy forms, but is earmarked for further development, possibly into a sports centre. Number 11, with its more classical forms, has become offices.

As these buildings prove, brick is eminently adaptable, but they are also pointers to the troubled history the material has had in France and Paris. Originally brought into the country by the Romans, brick was largely forgotten again until the 14th century, but then rose again to ultimately reach a pinnacle in the 17th century, most notably at the Place des Vosges. Since this period, brick has made sporadic appearances, but has largely been supplanted by the abundant natural stone to be found in the country. Paris itself is built on top of cavernous stone quarries which have provided much of the sandy white stone seen on the buildings in the city today.

In the 19th century brick was still frequently used as a building material, but almost always covered over with a plaster cladding. This house in the Rue de la Tour des Dames is therefore a true rarity, proudly baring its red skeleton to the world.

The early decades of the 20th century saw brick make a grand comeback in the city, but almost entirely on municipal buildings, particularly the swathes of social HBM housing around the edges of the city. In these more recent times though, brick has suffered on two fronts. Whilst it has largely been snubbed as a material by the rich since the 17th century, it also became deeply unfashionable in modernist circles. In the United Kingdom where brick has always reigned supreme, it became a class issue; being a material for the masses it was too lowly for the wealthy. It even became a 20th Century insult, with the term ‘Red-brick Universities’ given to the more modern schools, belittling them in comparison to the classical stone of Oxford and Cambridge.

Post-war, the modernists also rejected brick, believing it to be old-fashioned, and a symbol of traditional and pre-industrial technology. The modernists advocated the revolutionary new materials of glass, steel, and concrete, and when brick walls could not be avoided, they were rendered neutral with a coat of plaster or concrete cladding.

Today it is often considered an impractical material, certainly for the larger scale structures that are likely to appear in a city. It became easier to build higher and more quickly with the more modern materials, so much so that it lead the architect Louis Kahn to ask the famous question “what do you want brick?”. Kahn believed that brick would answer “I Like an arch”, meaning that it is flexible, wants to be seen, and can be decorative. Its simplicity, reasonable cost and solidity make it still practical, but perhaps it is through its aesthetic that it still makes its best case. Looking at these buildings in front of me, I can’t help but wonder if concrete and glass really are the answer to all today’s construction conundrums.

Further Information:
If anybody can give me any more information about the building at Number 11 I’d be very interested!

For examples of how flexible brick can be in construction, click here.

For more information on a very interesting book on the subject of brick in Paris, click here.

Great Dames...(Part 1)

(Rue de la Tour des Dames, 75009)

At the eastern end of the Rue de la Tour des Dames near the Trinité church stand a group of elegant Parisian ladies. These are not the ‘dames’ mentioned in the street name, but a collection of townhouses built when this area was the most fashionable part of Paris. Known as ‘la Nouvelle Athènes’ or new Athens, the streets in this district were home to a community of artists, writers, actors and composers, who used their restoration wealth to construct neo-classical follies.

The Tour des Dames mentioned is in fact a throwback to pre-revolutionary times. The Tour (tower) was a windmill found in this area which belonged to the ladies of the Montmartre Abbey, situated further up the hill from this spot. This place of religion and aristocratic privilege sheltered generations of ‘Abbesses’ (another street name in this part of Paris) and nuns until revolution came at the end of the eighteenth century. The last sister was named Louise de Montmorency-Laval, and neither her position nor her age, nor even the fact that she was blind, deaf and handicapped prevented her from joining thousands of other female representatives of the previous order at the guillotine. Worse, she was condemned for having ‘plotted silently and blindly against the Republic’.

The Abbey was destroyed and the windmill removed, but the area retained a rural feel. Less than thirty years later, after the failure of the first Republic and the restoration of the monarchy, a new kind of female resident began to arrive and construction began again. These were actresses at the Comédie Française, the wives of painters or, slightly later, writers such as Georges Sand. Given the power to design and create, they built a small community of elegant, curved, sometimes brightly coloured properties, and enjoyed the limelight of Paris for most of the nineteenth century.

Today these streets are quiet, although some properties such as the Musée de la Vie Romantique and the Musée Gustave Moreau retain their original decoration and character. The other ladies have retired from artistic life and have been converted to the more staid worlds of law, finance and insurance. In the Rue de la Tour des Dames, these ladies look forlornly at each other, perhaps discussing past times when they were young, beautiful and fashionable before they were upstaged by younger rivals in other parts of the city.

These houses are still in many ways the epitome of the Parisian lady. Gently crafted, elegant and perfectly formed, they nevertheless today present a face of cold indifference to the world. Some hide away their charms behind fences, whilst others have disguised their interior behind softly painted facades. As I walk along the street and admire them, they do not even acknowledge my existence.

I know why this is though. It is because I am brick. I was born in brick, brought up in brick, went to school in brick, and brick is in my DNA. It is part of me, and sometimes in Paris I miss having it around.

(To be continued…)