Paris Brutal t-il?

Almost all architectural styles are visible in Paris, but I've long wondered if there are any authentic examples of the truly brutal. Coming from the United Kingdom I share my birthplace with a style of architecture that was harsh and cold, and which marked my upbringing. On Saturday afternoons we parked the family car in damp multi-story car parks then trudged around windswept concrete shopping centres watching the rain form large patches of moisture on the blank, grey exteriors.

I've since come to associate these images with the United Kingdom and had found nothing similar in Paris - until one day when I was walking across the 13th arrondissement and discovered this office block at 64-68 Rue du Dessous des Berges. The rarity of such structures could be considered surprising, as although the school of architecture was British-based, the origin of the term brutalism comes from the French béton brut, or "raw concrete". It was the English architects Alison and Peter Smithson who first coined the term in 1954, and two of their influences were also French based; one that could be safely mentioned, Le Corbusier and his love of concrete, and one that was almost unmentionable - the German sea-defences that had been built along the western coast of France.

In France where cooking is king, it is hard to imagine a material being left completely raw. And yet here is a building that is truly coarse and unrefined. This is perhaps not true brutalism as it is just too much of a regular block form, but it does have several design tricks that make it lean towards that school. The two basement levels are cut away from the street level enabling light to seep into a small plant-filled courtyard. The main building above is supported by pilotis or stilts from this level, and the only entrance into the building is through a bizarre, almost children's game-like tunnel which flies over the courtyard below.

Mostly though it is its use of plain, raw concrete that suprises in this city. Like many buildings of a similar 60s/70s vintage, especially in damper, northern climates, the concrete has suffered and is streaked and specked. The letters spelling out the address have slipped off the wall one-by-one, and yet as I walk by new residents are moving in. It is an address that is still obviously in demand and for me, oddly comforting to come across something so reminiscent of my youth.

Are there any other examples of brutalism in Paris? In reality it is a city that had no use for the style. Large parts of Britain were flattened during the war and quickly and cheaply rebuilt afterwards whilst Paris was very largely spared during the conflict. Large-scale construction projects were mostly limited to the suburbs, and it would be in some of these new towns that I would need to go if I really wanted to track down the brutal. However, whilst it can be comforting to return to your hometown, sometimes you find that after discovering new places, the previously familiar in fact becomes banal and ugly in comparison. Finding this building is sufficient for me!

Free Walk Two: Contemporary Architecture

I'm going to be away for a week on vacation and so am leaving you with another gift - the second free Invisible Paris download! My first dealt mainly with history, but this second guided tour will take you around the present and into the future!

Paris is internationally admired for its uniform, strictly controlled architecture, but this 19th century neo-classical model is also one that has prevented a certain audacity since. Look carefully though and you’ll find a sprinkling of areas, mainly at the edges of the city, where an interesting and varied selection of buildings has been allowed to develop.

This walk concentrates on two of these areas, taking you away from the comforting, unchallenging forms of Haussmannian Paris. These riverside districts have been in permanent mutation for the past 30 years, and represent zones where new and daring structures are springing from the ground. Previously given over to industry, these areas are today seeing regeneration towards new uses and are providing a whole new focal point for Paris. Featuring not only architecture in a traditional sense but also parks, bridges, boats, galleries, shops and libraries, this is a walk which offers you many opportunities to pop in and pop out at your own leisure - or you can choose just one location and simply relax and admire the rest!

Once more, I have also tried to make it a document that is attractive to look at and interesting to read for people who have no plans to visit the city or use their feet! Please download and circulate, and please don't hesitate to give me any feedback you may have.

Rights, Rites and Secrecy

In the city where the déclaration des droits de l'homme was pronounced and adopted sits a strange and intimidating building. The declaration famously stated that 'tous les Hommes naissent et demeurent libres et égaux en droit' (all men are born and remain free and equal in rights), but what about women? Written large on the facade of this building is seemingly a riposte to this statement - but what is this structure?

Built in a strange mixture of Greek neo-classical with Egyptian touches, this structure on the Rue Jules Breton in the 13th arrondissement belongs to Le Droit Humain. Their motto is written across the width of the facade; "Dans l'humanité la femme a les mêmes devoirs que l'homme. Elle doit avoir les mêmes droits dans la famille et dans la societé" (In humanity women have the same obligations as men. They should have the same rights in the family and in society). An interesting and thoroughly modern message, especially on a construction from the early 20th century, but who are Le Droit Humain? Above the entrance door is a clue.

Ordo Ab Chao. Order from chaos - the international motto of freemasonry. This building is clearly therefore a masonic lodge or temple, but what is the connection with feminism? The answer is one woman; Maria Deraismes. She was the first woman to be ordained in a masonic ceremony in France in 1882, but after this caused a split in the lodge where she had been ordained she soon found herself removed. After spending a decade essentially as a one-person lodge, she decided one day to invite a group of several highly educated women to her home, amongst which were active feminists and respected scientists. She then slowly initiated them through the symbolic grades, and together they formed a new lodge; Le Droit Humain. They were later joined by a man, Georges Martin, and the lodge became mixed. It was later Martin who ordered the construction of this temple.

The lodge continues today and the building is still used, but such is the complexity of such organisations that it is very difficult to know on what basis it currently operates. The official website preaches a message of openness, but the building itself could not be more impenetrable. The solid, windowless brick wall behind seven thick columns gives it more the air of a fortification than a temple, and it is very unlikely that the casual visitor would be welcomed inside. Indeed, the famous secretiveness of masonry here becomes almost mystical;

"Masonic Meetings begin and end with a symbolical ceremony, but that which takes place inside the Temple cannot be revealed by articles, because it is inherent to an initiatory experience which cannot be expressed in words"

What becomes striking therefore is the inherent contradictions and incongruities an organisation that declares an openness to the world but then practices rites behind locked doors. This building nevertheless remains a very graphic reminder of the battle for equality, and although we may never know what takes place inside, we do at least know that it was here that several small steps were taken towards the recognition of the role women could play in all sectors of society.

The Bièvre Uncovered

The quay alongside the Pont d’Austerlitz is a sad affair. Trapped between a busy main road and a rusting Salvation Army hulk this riverside location sees few visitors. As Metro trains rattle overhead and weeds rustle gently in the winds, it is difficult to imagine that this is the point where two rivers previously met. The Seine continues to flow by, lifting and dropping the creaking derelict boat, but its little cousin, the Bièvre has long since been covered over and diverted down long tunnels to a sewage works in the suburb of Achères.

I won’t try to tell the full story of the River Bièvre nor attempt a description of where it used to run through the city. My interest is focussed more on the emotional issues connected to this subject. Why has this river taken on almost mythical proportions in Paris today, and what are the dangers to a city of covering over a river blocking the flow to its natural receptor? We have accepted the concretisation of our cities, of seeing trees and fields make way for houses and roads, but the disappearance of a river into the city sewers still seems like an aberration. Local residents have called for the unearthing of the Bièvre, but will this banished Parisian river ever see the skies above the city again?

The first thing to point out is that it is still a living waterway. It still has the same source near Versailles and still flows gently through the more rural outskirts of Paris. As it approaches the city though it becomes harder to spot before disappearing underground completely beyond the Parc Heller in Anthony. Never much larger than a narrow stream, the river nevertheless previously wound its way through the streets and gardens of the 5th and 13th arrondissements of Paris, serving trade and industry, before finally joining the Seine beyond the Jardin des Plantes.

What trace would I be able to find of this river today? I decided to choose one part of the city where the river previously flowed and, like a man carrying a divining rod, try to dowse out sources of water. The natural place to begin the hunt seemed to be the Square René Le Gall in the 13th arrondissement, previously the gardens of the Manufacture des Gobelins and known as the ‘ile aux Singes’ (Monkey island) at the time of the Bièvre.

Transformed into a neo-classical style park in 1938, almost at the same period as the neighbouring Mobilier National building, it is still quite easy to imagine how this stretch of land used to be. It was a place of leisure for the workers of the Manufacture des Gobelins (where cloth and tapestries were made), and filled with spots where they could dance and drink beer. The garden was an island between two stretches of the Bièvre, and monkeys skipped about freely amongst the revellers. The water of the Bièvre were used in the manufacturing process in the factory above, and the workers beer-rich urine was believed to improve its quality!

Today, a line of poplar trees marks out the Bièvre’s ancient path, and an artificial bubbling brook has been added to give an impression of the river. It is a pleasant bucolic spot, and it is easy to imagine the river resurfacing here. Indeed, it is one of four spots chosen in Paris where this could become a reality, and the point where what is left of the river is closest to the surface. Leaving the park, it is easy at first to follow the Bièvre’s path as the streets have kept the same sweeping movement of the river. The Rue Croulebarbe and the Rue Barbier de Mets were once the banks of the river, and a row of buildings still stand witness to this period. This is what is known as the ilot de la Reine Blanche, a series of houses and buildings where fabrics were cut and dyed, all naturally taking advantage of the river that flowed by.

I follow the narrow streets up to the Avenue des Gobelins, but here the 19th century Haussmannian infrastructure makes me lose track of the river. At some point it snaked past the Jardin des Plantes then took a last dive into the Seine. In truth it's hard to imagine the river ever making a comeback in such a dense urban environment. The Bièvre was eliminated from the city when it became a foul smelling danger to people, thick with industry waste and the blood of animals, so would it be realistic to bring it back today as a simple trick of urbanists?

In reality it will never happen. The face of the city has changed and the course of the river has been wiped away. The Paris administrators did look into the possibility of opening up four stretches in the city, but found that even this would cost them 100 million Euros. A purification station would need to be built at the entrance of the city and the underground stream would need to be carefully untangled from sewer pipes and Metro tunnels. It has been condemned to stay out of site and serve only to wash away our waste. In its place, the city of Paris chose the much cheaper solution of placing some metallic markers on the ground along the river's path. For the rest, you'll need to use your imagination.

Note: This subject is a vast topic. I will try to come back to it again in the future, hopefully if I can talk to somebody who would like to bring the river back or from the group of artists that celebrate this heritage (the Lez'arts de la Bièvre). I will also try to create a Paris 'Bièvre' walk - that will be made available for free of course!

Free Paris Walking Tours!

The first freely downloadable Invisible Paris walk is now available – as well as a completely new dedicated website (http://invisiblepariswalks.blogspot.fr/)!

The first walk, a 20 page PDF document, is entitled From Sainte Rita to Saint Lazare : A trip into the female experience of the city, and runs from Pigalle to the old Hôpital St Lazare. This area is rich with images and anecdotes on the female condition, mixing art, religion and work. It investigates places linked to women, where women have tried to live freely or where women were forced to do things against their will. Naturally this often involves discussion of men too, and their role in the repression or liberation of women, as well as how they chose to represent them.

Why am I creating these walks though? Well, I enjoy running this blog and researching different parts of Paris, but it started to feel as if the information only had a very short life-span. Blogs are hungry creatures and need regular feeding, but the accumulation of information means that posts are quickly relegated to the hard-to-find archives. A solution to this problem therefore was to group together the posts as walking tours, and liberate them from the blog format.

This was the theory anyway. In reality, this has taken me a lot longer than I thought it would to put together, but I still think that the effort was worthwhile. It was quite easy to find a cluster of posts that were linked by theme and geographical location, but a walk also involves directions, maps and supplementary information between the principal spots, and this is the time-consuming part!

I also felt that readers of this blog may want another resource, especially if they are planning a trip to Paris. I have tried to make these walk documents something that will be interesting to read and look at even if you never visit Paris, but the main goal is that they be used to help show a slightly different side of the city to visitors and residents.

Forthcoming walks (currently being polished up!) will include Street Art and Contemporary Architecture. Others will follow if these are popular and when I have a little bit more time!

Anyway, I hope as many as you as possible choose to download the PDF walk documents, even if it is just for a little light reading. Please feel free also to share them with friends and family, as an additional goal of the document is to attract new visitors to this blog. Finally, if you do download one please don’t hesitate to give me any feedback, corrections or suggestions you may have. Happy reading and walking!