May 2014 ~ Invisible Paris

The Morrison Hotel Mystery

The death of Jim Morrison is not the only mystery in the Rue Beautreillis. On this street where the leader of The Doors spent the last few months of his life and where he (probably) died, another door stands curiously alone. But what is it?

The last bastion standing

Today only one significant element of the city’s 19th century fortifications remains standing. Where is the Bastion n°1 and what purpose does it serve today?

The World's Oldest Surviving Basketball Court

How did a game invented by the YMCA in America cross the Atlantic in the late 19th century, and why has this Paris court survived so long?

The Longest Street in Paris

An attempt to find the soul of the city's longest thoroughfare.

Belgium by the Seine

A trip to Elisabethville on the trace of old postcard locations leads me to abandoned beach resorts and experimental 1950s architecture.

Tuesday, 20 May 2014

A Cabin in a Concrete Cruise liner...for €2 million

Near the Balard Metro station, the French Ministry of Defence is putting the finishing touches to its new HQ, dubbed the French Pentagon. The construction site punctuates the skyline, offering glimpses of shiny new buildings behind high fences, a panorama that we are forbidden to photograph.

Sitting opposite on the other side of the Boulevard Victor, separated by the neat green carpet of the tramway, is another building that is almost military in form. Around 50 metres long - but only 10 metres wide at its broadest point (barely more than 2 metres at its narrowest) - this nautical looking structure though has no connection to its combative neighbour. This is perhaps architect Pierre Patout's finest moment, and a piece of design history that you could today own - if you have €2 million to spare.

A ‘Frantic’ search for Polanski's Paris

Filmed in 1987 and released in 1988, Roman Polanski’s ‘Frantic’ is not the best film ever to be set in Paris. It is though one that continues to intrigue, perhaps because it plays the city against type, relentlessly capturing a paranoid rather than a picturesque Paris. It is this visual aspect that is the focus here, following a request from a reader to hunt down some of the filming locations. More than 25 years after the film was made, could I find places that are perhaps no longer there - or maybe never even existed in the first place?