Vicarious Experience Project: #18

Fellow artist Duane Perolio requested: 

If you haven’t done so already, the Rodin Garden. The man’s work is reason enough to pay it a visit, but the garden is also a tranquil place to kick back and enjoy a bottle of wine and some cheese (BYO).

Musée Rodin was first opened in 1919 in the Hôtel Biron (built 1728-30), Rodin’s residence from 1908 to his death in 1917. He donated his entire sculptural collection to the state on the condition that the house be turned into a public museum, even granting permission to cast up to 12 copies of any sculpture from the original plaster casts. Rodin was a talented and prolific sculpture to be sure, but I also suspect that the establishment of this museum was a canny maneuver to ensure his place in the art historical canon. My in-house art historian postulates that Rodin was fixated on the idea of the heroic artist, and worked hard in his lifetime to establish his own cultural capital through personal associations, artist-sanctioned reproduction, and the medium of photography.

Waiting for spring, I held off visiting the Rodin Garden, wanting to see the garden in its full flowery grassy glory. When my cousin and her husband were visiting Paris in June, Musée Rodin was on their must-see list, so I tagged along. Whenever I go on assignments, they never go quite as planned, and I always debate whether to return again to have a “better” experience. Sometimes I do, but it seems more candid and fitting to report on the place as it happened: we can only plan our tourism so much, and the imperfection is what ends up making it memorable and undeniably one’s own experience. So, apologies to Duane, I did not kick back and enjoy wine and cheese at Rodin Garden as suggested: it would not have been enjoyable sitting in a pile of mud. 

The weather in Paris was particularly moody that week, at first sunny and lovely then rainy and gray. As it had been raining all morning, we didn’t bother with the picnic supplies, but still hoped to tour the garden. The weather cooperated for a brief time, so we headed to the garden first, before the fickle climate changed again. The major hits can be found interspersed throughout the garden, with The Thinker and The Gates of Hell occupying choice locations. The sculptures seemed more at home outside than inside, marked by the elements and toned with earthy browns and greens.

The surrounding garden is indeed tranquil. As it’s a private garden (there’s a 1€ entrance fee in addition to your museum ticket) it’s less crowded then other Paris parks, and the absence of graffiti and litter makes it feel more timeless. High walls create an oasis from the city, and geometrically precise landscaping showcases a plethora of rosebushes, including the specially bred “Rodin Rose.” This is a far cry from its appearance during Rodin’s time: poet Rainer Maria Rilke described it in 1908 as “an abandoned garden, where rabbits can be seen from time to time jumping through the trellises like in an old tapestry.”

The gray sky and still dripping trees weren’t a total downer: the rain and emptiness of the garden makes for a much more meditative and serene atmosphere. I’ve always adored that ephemeral visual contrast present only just after it rains, between the bright green leaves and the darkly wet bark and soil. 

Aside from Rodin, there was a contemporary exhibition of Belgian artist Wim Delvoye, a welcome contrast to the multitude of bronzes. (Confession: I just can’t get into 19th century sculpture. Perhaps I am a philistine, but I can only look at so many before they become a blur of indistinct figural sculptures.) The major piece installed in the courtyard was a laser-cut steel filigree tower; rusty orange, symmetrical and cold, it was a striking antithesis to Rodin’s rough and twisted human figures.

In the museum, we saw many more Rodin sculptures. Shocking, I know. Despite my (very) recent panning of figural sculpture, I did enjoy seeing the contrast of materials in the smaller pieces, including plaster, marble, bronze and maquettes illustrating the casting process. My favorite pieces were those in marble, many of which were executed by Rodin’s students after his designs. Aided by the light filtered through the windows, these works had an otherworldly softness and glow. 

I was taken aback by the condition of the building itself: rooms in various states of disrepair, cracked and crumbling plaster decorations and (most surprisingly) the windows were even thrown open with rain sprinkling onto the floor. Some provincial museums with little to no funding have this atmosphere, but it was unlike any other museum I’ve seen in Paris. It was to a charming effect though, as it felt more like a place an artist had actually worked and gave a romantic air to its former resident.

It seems that I bought into the image Rodin had cultivated for himself after all, one that the museum continues to foster posthumously. Though the museum was likable, I don’t think I’ll pay another visit to the collection, once is enough for me. But the next time I’m looking for an exceptionally tranquil picnic, I’ll gladly pay the 1€ entrance fee to the garden.

Vicarious Experience Project: #17

One last assignment from Allison Walter:

Could I see the grocery store dairy section, a government office building, or an amusement park?

I really, really wanted to do this right and go to EuroDisney or Parc Asterix, but alas adventures of those kind conflict with our meager budget. I also wanted to find an amusement park that was within the city limits, and my options are limited as I wasn’t ready to expand my definition to view public gardens as amusement parks (my favorite part of Paris to be sure, and yes, they are amusing, but no rides? Come on.)

Fortunately with summer comes Fête des Tuileries, a temporary amusement park set up in the usually beautiful Jardin de Tuileries next to the Louvre. I say usually, because although the Fête is next to the Louvre, perhaps the greatest archive of visual culture on earth, this diversion packs in all of the garish tackiness that it could possibly muster, to awesome effect.

About the length of 4 and a half football fields (or 5 soccer fields, since we’re in Europe) it is filled with games of skill, fun houses, rides for adults and kids (but mostly kids) and churro stands. I visited during the day initially, and it was packed with families. Most of the rides were pretty low-rent, but you can’t deny that the kids loved it anyway.

The centerpiece of the Fête is the Grand Roue, which in the winter months is a few blocks away at Place de la Concorde. Other attractions include a flume ride with a giant gorilla, a spinny swing ride, harnessed trampolines, a flying carpet ride, bumper cars (les auto-tamponneuses!) and a classic carousel.

The big draw for danger-seeking teenagers was the reverse bungee contraption, where you’re harnessed into a spherical frame, and launched 200 feet in the air, spinning and screaming. I saw a group of 3 brash young bucks take a spin, and directly after they calmly walked to the ride’s platform edge, leaned over and vomited in concert. Bros 4 life.

I decided to come back to take photos at night, as it’s not really a fair until all the lights are on. So I hopped on my bike and rode out to Tuileries. When I was a few blocks away, I felt some ominous drips. Then it started to pour. Like, really pour. I ran into the colonnade of shops on Rue de Rivoli with the hordes of tourists and waited for it to stop. But it didn’t. For an hour.

I sat down for a coffee, and horreur! when the bill arrived I was short 8 centimes. Based on past experiences with prickly French people and expected payment, I feared a scene with the waiter, where he would make an elegant and shaming speech about my irresponsibility and dishonor, as a crowd gathered around me, hissing and pelting me with pieces of stale baguette. I debated making a run for it, or asking the tables of Americans around me for a dime but my better self prevailed and I fessed up to the waiter in my most polite and apology filled French. He said, and I quote: “pfft.” I promised him I would return another time (“bof, pas de problem, madame”), and headed back out into the drizzle. The teenagers were back on the swing ride, and if they could fly through the air with rain pelting their face, I guessed I could take some photos.

I trudged around in the muddy park for a bit with the few other tourists untroubled by the rain. The carnival workers enjoyed their unexpected break from work, abandoning their posts to flirt with the cute girls at the cotton candy stand. Aside from the Louvre looming in the distance, and the availability of citron crepes, the Fête des Tuileries was indistinguishable from any American state fair, which wasn’t such a bad thing. 

Vicarious Experience Project: #16

From Allison Walter:

Could I see the grocery store dairy section, a government office building, or an amusement park?

In the last post, the dairy section was covered, so now onto government office buildings. There are a variety of government buildings here in this capital city, ranging from ornate and romantic to drab and oppressive. In DC, you can also find a range of architectural attitudes from the stately Old Executive Building to the horrific J. Edgar Hoover FBI building, and Paris is no different with hits and misses. 

The most famous in the classic ornate category is Hôtel de Ville, which houses the city’s administration, including the mayor’s office. (Did you know that the mayor of Paris was STABBED in Hôtel de Ville during arts extravaganza Nuit Blanche in 2002? I didn’t! Don’t worry, he’s fine and still the mayor.) Place de Hôtel de Ville has been the location of the municipality of Paris since 1357, although the Hôtel itself wasn’t built until 1533, completed in 1628. Of course, the building we see today isn’t the original: it was burnt to a stone shell during the 1871 French Commune. But the government rebuilt the exterior in an exact replica, effectively attempting to erase that earlier unpleasantness. 

Place de Hôtel de Ville is often used for public events: on the day I visited, there was a pro-fitness event and the square was filled with badminton players and children trapped in giant plastic balls. I would have been way more interested in phys ed as a kid if it was all badminton, pétanque and rolling around in balloons. Vive la France.

On the opposite end of the spectrum in the Bercy area of Paris, there is the building that houses the Ministry of Finance known simply as “Bercy” or more pointedly la forteresse de Bercy. A massive complex along the Seine, it is imposing and coldly anonymous, which I’m sure is no accident. It recalls the dystopian bureaucratic architecture in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, filmed at the same time that Bercy was being constructed.

« Bercy Fortress, photo by Vill Nikiforov. I took some too, but this here is a meritocracy and his were better. »

The Ministry of Finance is France’s largest and most powerful government department, and the building is not subtle with that message. It is criticized as evoking fascist architecture, and the section straddling Rue de Bercy is often compared to a tollbooth…fitting for the tax-collectors employed inside. The building also nods to the importance of its occupants with an ostentatious helicopter pad, and high speed boats at its own docks to rush VIPs to meetings elsewhere in Paris. The architect responsible is Paul Chemetov, who is also behind perhaps the most reviled building in all of Paris: Forum des Halles. For shame, sir.

« Left: Bercy by Vill. Right: Les Halles by Flickr user Allie_Caulfield. Unsurprisingly, none of the 15,000 photos I’ve taken in France feature Les Halles. » 

One of my preferred government buildings is the Ministre de la Culture, which is a contemporary monolith but somehow not so oppressive. The structure is actually 2 buildings of different styles and ages that have been unified with a façade of lace-like stainless steel patterns. The wrapping acknowledges history, while layering it with a veil of contemporary influence. Just blocks from the Louvre on rue Saint Honoré, it is a refreshing contrast to the sea of Second Empire architecture in the area. 

« Ministère de la Culture, older building section on left, newer on right. »

While those three are the extremes of governmental building largesse, there are lots of smaller examples in between, nestled more naturally into neighborhoods and blending into the more standard Parisian architecture. On the way to Tuileries just the other day, I passed a complex of government buildings housing the Ministry of Budget and the Mairie of the 2nd Arrondissement (the town hall for the district). They were not particularly grandiose, but instead they were all “normal” Parisian buildings: stone construction, some columns, decorative details here and there. They seemed of and by the city, and a natural fit within the quartier. Which, comparatively, is the most democratic and localized version of architectural motivations of this set. It seems fitting for local government to have a destination for its citizens that feels local, albeit a bit boring.

Next up…the architectural anthesis of government buildings: the amusement park.

Vicarious Experience Project: #15

Allison Walter requested some assorted experiences: 

Could I see the grocery store dairy section, a government office building, or an amusement park?

Sure! I’m confident I can do all three, but let’s tackle the dairy section first, a mysterious land of lactose and delights.

« Cheese sections at my local Franprix and Monoprix. »

Getting groceries is a multi-pronged affair in Paris. Usually I end up hitting a minimum of 3 stores: the supermarché for the basic stuff, the boulangerie for good baguettes (indispensable and non-negotiable), and the épicerie for produce (veggies at the supermarché are way overpriced and sad). But if I want I want the nice stuff or something specialized, it means adding on the boucherie for meat, fromagerie for cheese, charcuterie for sausage, patisserie for dessert, japanese market for sushi rice and mirin, the wine shop, and maybe Picard, the amazing frozen-food-only store.

« One of our local épiceries, Les Halles du Faubourg and a tradigrain baguette from our favorite boulangerie, Julhès. »

With the possibility of going to ten places for a few days of groceries, you can see why the supermarché can be enticing in its one stop luxury. Of course, that’s if you’re not too picky and don’t mind overspending a bit for the convenience. In the Parisian supermarchés, there’s not a lot of choice compared to American grocery stores and they’re an 1/8th of the size. Stores over 200 meters are forbidden within the confines of the city, so for a supermarché similar in scale to American groceries, you have to take a trip out to the suburbs.

In our neighborhood, the two main choices for supermarchés are Franprix and Monoprix. The Franprix is tiny, but close and a bit cheaper. Monoprix has a lot more choice, and a pretty decent line of store-brand prepared foods. Poulet roti chips and 1€ duck terrine? Yes, please. When discussing exploring a new neighborhood and establishing your shopping routine, one of our expat friends (who is commendably more energetic and committed to shopping in the true Parisian fashion) exclaimed “Monoprix is for suckers!” Sign me up in the sucker category, as I still think wistfully about Target and harbor an American tendency towards convenience. Monoprix (technically a hypermarché) is the closest thing the French have to Target: they also carry a line of semi-discount clothes and other household items. 

« A proper fromagerie: La Ferme Saint-Julien on Île Saint Louis. »

But we’re here to talk about dairy. Compared to the dreamland of Parisian fromageries, the cheese selection is grim and unartful: they are packaged in plastic (blaspheme!) and are of significantly lower quality than those found at the fromagerie. Compared to Giant or Safeway though, the selection is exotic, extensive and delicious. I adore highbrow cheese as much as the next food nerd, but I also totally delight in being able to walk 1 block and choose from 10 kinds of aged goat cheese, all of which are miles above the one sad tube I would find in my Chicago Giant. It’s also a bonus for me, still sometimes shy with my French, to be able to ruminate over cheese choice without a fromagère staring at me.

« (Mostly) goat cheese at Franprix. »

Of course, it’s not all cheese…you can also find all of your gourmet butters, creams and about a billion kinds of yogurt. While the variety in the supermarché overall is less than an American grocery store, the dairy section is in inverse proportion. In our Monoprix, there’s about 60 linear feet of shelves dedicated to dairy products, where pasta only warrants 4 feet of shelf. At tiny Franprix, I counted 19 different kinds of Camembert…I didn’t even try with the yogurt.

« Less than half of the yogurt section at Monoprix, Mamie Nova: my favorite yogurt. The mandarine pamplemousse rose is not to be missed. »

Last stop on the dairy train: milk! Lait is far away from the refrigerated dairy section, stored at room temperature with bottled water and soda. Sterilized to the extreme with the UHT (ultra-high temperature) process, it has a 6-9 month shelf life unopened, which still weirds me out…purists say it tastes terrible, but not being much of a milk drinker, I can’t tell the difference with the little bit in my coffee. While it hasn’t caught on in the US (because of said weirding out, I suppose) 95.5% of the milk consumed in France is UHT processed. 

And that’s your trip to the dairy section! Next up: government buildings.

Vicarious Experience Project: #14

My well-read father-in-law Stewart Lewis proposed: 

Find out why a social philosopher once said, “The father of Surrealism was Dada; its mother was an arcade.” Visit Paris under glass, the world’s first mini-malls and do some window licking (lèche-vitrines).  Document some uniquely French touches.
 

The social philosopher in question was household favorite Walter Benjamin, whose last book Passagenwerk (Arcades Project) concerned the covered passages of Paris and their relation to flânerie and Parisian visual culture as a whole. Benjamin worked on it for the last 13 years of his life and but it was left unfinished with his suicide in 1940. It was not this beloved work that drove him to it, but desperation in the face of Nazi imprisonment, after he was arrested while fleeing to Portugal with a Jewish refugee group. 

To brush up on Benjamin’s thoughts on the arcades, I read “Through the Arcades” by Katie Trumpener. In this article, she reviews Susan Buck-Morss’s book The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project. (I thought this was an appropriately vicarious research method, viewing the arcades through the lens of Trumpener via Buck-Morss via Benjamin.) The arcades project was intended to function as “a kind of historiographic equivalent of the arcade, a passageway cut through the nineteenth century, with dozens of windows proffering to the viewer a vast range of historical perspectives.” (Trumpener, p 320) Benjamin attempted to illuminate through research and theory what the arcades illuminate physically: dozens of views into spheres of visual culture, organized into linear hallways and operating as an oversized jewel box of consumerism. 

While surely much has changed in the arcades since the 1930’s, they remain distinctly separate spaces in Paris. Neither outside nor inside, the long glass covered passageways have a different volume and air than the street: no one is rushing and the stores are consistently quaint if not entirely antique. Filled with tiny restaurants, countless used book stores, stamp and postcard vendors, galleries, jewelry and decor shops (almost all of them independent) the stores are eclectic through and through. The arcades foster the impression of an island of misfit stores that could have no home anywhere else. 

There were at one time 150 passages, today there are only 19 open to the public, and being a near-professional flâneur (or in this case, flâneuse) these days, I wandered through most of them over 2 days. A few I was quite familiar with already, as they are a convenient and picturesque path from our house to the Louvre and the BNF Richelieu, where Jacob does most of his research. Here is a tour of the best passages. 

Passage Verdeau, est. 1847

One of two passages connecting Rue de Faubourg Montmartre and the Grand Boulevard, it’s the closest arcade to our apartment, which has a lovely arched glass ceiling, likely modeled after neighboring Passage Jouffroy built two years before. It hosts a couple of restaurants, antique print and drawing dealers and some offbeat home decor stores.

Passage Jouffroy, est. 1845

Always the most crowded passage, Jouffroy holds wax works destination Musée Grevin, the beautiful Hotel Chopin, the less beautiful Best Western, a dollhouse specialty shop and several confectionaries. Most fitting the spirit of the arcades is Monsieur G. Segas’ shop, advertising “Objets de Curiosité” and specializing in canes, overseen by a giant moose skull. Separated by stairs, the first section is largely occupied by Librairie Paul Vulin, a bookstore specializing in art history texts displayed in the long hallway, a perfect foil for idling flâneurs.

Passage des Panoramas, est. 1799-1800

After crossing the Grand Boulevard, you enter the oldest passage still in existence. Quite narrow, this arcade is mostly filled with restaurants whose sidewalk tables make it even narrower still. Aptly characterized as “seductively shabby,” it begins in a charming fashion with crumbly tile floors and cluttered signs, but as you get farther into the passage, it deteriorates into abandoned storefronts, ending in a suspicious establishment called the Euro Mens Club.

Galerie des Varietes, Galerie Feydeau, Galerie Montmartre, est. 1830s

Shoot offs of the Passage des Panoramas, these galeries range from quaint but unpopulated to totally abandoned. Although connected to the larger passage, they are just enough off the beaten path that they are much less visited, and the few restaurants on Galerie Feydeau seem populated only by locals (when I came around the corner with a camera, everyone stopped talking and stared at me.)

Passage Choiseil, est. 1829

This passage reminded me most of the contemporary manifestation of the arcade: the strip mall. Populated with discount jewelry and clothing stores, ending with a run down bar, it’s a practical destination but certainly a less charming one.

Galerie Vivienne, est. 1823

A decidedly more upscale passage, this arcade behind the BNF Richelieu has beautiful spiraling tile floors, nicely restored wood carvings and a beautiful grand room with a well-outfitted wine bar and restaurant. Following suit to its luxe appearance, the arcade is mostly outfitted with fancy clothing and home decor stores, including a flagship Jean-Paul Gaultier boutique. 

Galerie Vero-Dodat, est. 1826

A few blocks from the Louvre, this petite passage was (relatively) recently restored in 1997, and it shows. The hall is lined with dark wood paneling with gold and marble accents, and topped off with painted friezes on the ceilings. Lest you wonder if the stores are affordable in this passage, the largest is a Christian Loubotin boutique. So, no. I wasn’t the only one who thought this was the most beautiful of the passages: a young hipstery violin player was having his portrait taken by a team of photographers while strolling down the arcade.

Passage du Bourg-l’Abbé, est. 1828

This passage was characterized in the French Wikipedia as “triste et endormi.” It was surely a bit sleepy, but I thought sad was a bit harsh. The entrance starts strong with a sculpture by Aimé Millet of caryatids, intended to be allegories of commerce and industry. The spaces were mostly filled with offices and one closed record store, so all of the commerce and industry was behind closed doors on my visit, making it a brief saunter.

Passage du Grand Cerf, 1825

The most vertically reaching of the passages, Passage of the Big Stag has beautiful wrought iron work, a second story lined with windows and a 12 meter high glass ceiling. It reminded me immediately of the Bradbury Building in Los Angeles in its combination of heavy materials and light atmosphere. Filled with artisanal jewelry, crafting supplies and colorful home decor stores, it was the only passage where I engaged in some serious lèche-vitrines for a bit rather than just observing. 

Back to the original question: why is the arcade the mother of surrealism? Trumpener offers that the arcades’ state of deterioration and penchant for nostalgia highlights the “transient pleasures of the surrealists’ visionary movement.” (Trumpener, p322) Certainly, the arcades’ main stock and trade is in ephemera and ambiance, presenting a vision of the past preserved in a rarified space. It is a dreamy place, where you can buy a snake-head cane, a dollhouse-sized chandelier and a macaron within a few steps. It’s not a stretch that surrealism could spring forth from such discordant objects, unified only by their precious oddity and proximity. The surrealists knew best that while it is artful to organize randomness in a painting, it is quite another experience to find this kind of meaningful randomness in an everyday place like the arcades.

To walk through the arcades looking through the lens of surrealism is to be guided to see only the odd and the nostalgic. If someone had instead told me that the arcades were tacky tourist traps long past their golden age, I would have likely instead seen only the cracked walls, overpriced baubles, and souvenir shops. However, I preferred seeing them through sepia-colored glasses. 

Work cited: Trumpener, Katie. “Through the Arcades” Modern Philology, Vol. 91, No. 3 (Feb., 1994), pp. 319-325. Published by: The University of Chicago Press

Vicarious Experience Project: #6 (part 2)

Back in January, I visited-but-didn’t-visit Fondation Cartier for David Burns, who had originally requested:

last time i was in paris i spent an entire day outside of the foundation cartier. i went there to study the jean nouvel building. i was mostly interested in how the building changes throughout the course of a day and the way that it had changed since it was designed and i had first visited it (quite a lot actually). the east side of the building still holds pretty true to the original memory of the building- the west- not so much. this building also contains a collection i believe, at the very least there are a couple of exhibition floors- via their website right now is a graffiti show. so why did i pick this place- my memory of this place has changed quite alot over the last 12 years but you would be going into this with only what i chose to share about my memories and have as the starting point what this place is now. 

I mistakenly last visited when the museum was in between exhibitions, so I only was able to see the street-side façade. But I made a more successful return recently to see their current exhibit “Gosse de Peinture: Beat Takeshi Kitano.”  Loosely translated to “Painter Kid” the exhibition is a solo site-specific installation for the Japanese film director turned artist. But David is interested in the building, so let’s talk about that first.

As I said in the last write-up, the building is an exercise in transparency and invisibility, reflecting and revealing its surroundings while strangely obscuring itself. And now that warmer seasons have arrived, it’s even more invisible than before.

« January and April from roughly the same vantage point. »

The trees and the building become entirely entwined visually, optically inseparable. There are trees in front of the building, trees behind the facade, foliage growing from the entrance and of course, reflections of green in all directions. The combination results in a multi-layered cacophany of glass and leaves, turning the reflections into seemingly infinite refractions of texture.

« View from exterior façade to the interior structure, plant installation by botanist Patrick Blanc above main entrance. »

An aspect related to this visual play of the structure is its contrasting purity and complexity. It seems that wherever possible, a visually permeable surface is used for structures: the unending panels of glass of course, but also exposed glass elevator banks and mesh grates on walkways and stairs. Although the materials are restricted to metal and glass, and the shape relationships are consistently perpendicular and parallel, the building is deceivingly complex, recalling fire escapes and MC Escher. The layers and layers of structure become increasingly complex and almost fractal in practice. As you walk around the side of the building, your vantage point is constantly changing, seeing through the main space, up through the stairs and escalators, through the façade to the street: paradoxically, the structure is totally transparent and totally obscuring.

I was visiting with my friend Shawnee, and we went to the garden out back to eat some sandwiches before going in. [NB: this was one of my all time favorite sandwiches in Paris: fois gras, cured ham, tomato confit with balsamic vinaigrette. Pitch perfect.] The back garden extends in a semi-circle from the building, providing a nice shape contrast to the strictly rectilinear character of the building, but is drab and dusty compared with the slickness of the museum. (Or maybe my sandwich was too amazing, making the surroundings bland by comparison.)

« Concentric steps in the garden emanating from the building, exposed elevator banks on rear of building. »

After waxing poetic about the sandwich, we headed back to see the exhibition, when I couldn’t find the ticket I had purchased only 5 minutes earlier. Shawnee and I being of similar minds (of the distractable nature) we headed directly for the trash can where I had just deposited my sandwich wrapper, and Shawnee promptly found my ticket beneath a pile of coleslaw. What a friend.

The Kitano exhibition was frenetic and fun, using the display language of a children’s science museum, but transmitting absurdity and eccentricity instead of facts and pedagogy. I was left cold by most of his paintings (this one excepted), but the installations were very engaging. In the space of one floor, he proposes various theories on the extinction of dinosaurs, offers interactive mind-bending puzzles and fantastical machines, produces a Japanese Edo-style marionette theater and illustrates secret weaponized animal-hybrids created by the Japanese army. The mood is both silly and dark, but always fun.


« The Truth about Dinosaur Extinction from the museum pamphlet, character of kon-tan (schemer spirit) taking residence in a withering tree in the courtyard. »

It was an interesting exhibit to see while considering the effectiveness of the building, as the structure is certainly not a traditional art exhibition space. Essentially a glass cube, there are no permanent walls for showing traditional two-dimensional art works, and the copious sunlight would be a conservator’s nightmare, but it felt like a perfect fit for work that is open and wild like Kitano’s, again making the space seem like a children’s museum more than an art museum. Kitano also took advantage of the vertical space on the main floor with arcs containing orb characters called “dharma” that watch over the visitors. Less successful are the transparent versions of his paintings slapped on the glass walls, which feel like a watered-down space filler that didn’t mesh with the rest of the creative melée.

« Installation space on ground floor (© office kitano inc. photo: Yoshinaga Yasuaki) and sculpture in garden illustrating opposing human spirits of kon-tan (schemer) and tama-jii (old man soul/spirit). »

I understand why David would return again and again to this building: it is a blank canvas of sorts that reflects and reveals both its surroundings and interior activity. Deceptively straightforward, it acts as a masterful prism that changes drastically with the seasons, the light and its inhabitants. I hope I can make one more visit before I leave France to see how it looks when the leaves change.
 

Vicarious Experience Project: #13

Friend and garden advocate Ben Helphand requested:

Can I get on the docket for Promenade Plantée? I’m thinking three treatments, one for each section of the trail (elevated, grade, below grade)… that or people making out.

Three treatments?! Ben is an uncompromising assigner and linear park enthusiast, so to keep with the 3 theme, I made 3 trips over 3 months for the 3 treatments of the 3 Promenade. 

Trip 1: 

On our first trip to Promenade Plantée, it was a drizzly and gray Sunday afternoon and I convinced Jake to sample the trail after visiting Marché Bastille. It is an excellent partner activity to the Promenade, as the west end of the promenade begins just behind Opéra Bastille. Well, it would be for a better planner than myself: I have never gotten up early enough on Sunday morning to go to the Promenade first, so I don’t have to carry my market buys with me on the walk. So, Jake did need a bit of convincing, given the rain, the awkwardness of umbrella + camera, heavy bags and a raw coquelet in a less-than-ideal food safety situation. However, proximity triumphed.

Le Coulée Vert (the western, elevated end of the trail) is the more famous section of the Promenade, even making its way to the silver screen as a backdrop for Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke’s romantic and verbose strolling in Before Sunset.  Several staircases and elevators lead pedestrians from Rue Daumesnil to the Promenade, which on this visit was just beginning to show the signs of spring with budding trees, wildly yellow forsythia, and flowering daffodils.

We strolled along the linear garden, stopping occasionally to look over the edge at the streets below, and avoiding eye contact with the few unruly youths and other oddballs occupying the benches, likely still partying from the night before. Other than sitting still, there seem to be only two speeds allowed on the Promenade: the languid stroll and the more industrious run. Le jogging is very popular up here, if not in the minds of the french public. 

While linear, the park has several different landscaping moods as you move through it. Some sections are more traditional and as symmetrical as a micro-Versailles, others more modern with industrial building materials, and a wilder quality of vegetation. My favorite passage is the bamboo section, where the path narrows, and you are completely surrounded by a tunnel of bamboo.

The most interesting aspect of the park (naturally) is its unique position moving through and above the city. As written in Ecological Urbanism ( via Landscape + Urbanism) 

“Given the undulating topography of the city, the promenade affords an ever-changing sectional relationship to its surroundings. As a result, the park produces a different experiences of the city compared, for example, to that of a Parisian boulevard.”

Truly, it’s a quieter and more meditative stroll through Paris, as you are able to look down on the streets below and at the chimney-topped apartments above at a mediated distance. It feels like an invisible, panoptic view from a privileged and verdant niche, separate from the city, yet able to survey it. One such exceptional view that the promenade offers is the facade of the 12th arrondissement police station, which (strangely) is lined with giant reproductions of Michaelangelo’s “The Dying Slave”.

Shortly after this, the path bisects through an apartment building, leading you through a very narrow but reaching vertical tunnel, opening up dramatically onto the expansive Jardin de Reuilly. 

At this point, Jake and I thought that was the end of Promenade Plantée, and headed for the métro. BUT WE WERE WRONG! DEAD WRONG!

Trip 2:

The 2nd trip was an accidental one, as I was touring my friend Vill around Paris and we took an epic (for us) 12 kilometer walk around the city. We crossed Rue Daumesnil on the way south, and after a brief walk on the elevated section, we walked along at street level, peeking into the various stores and studios on the Viaduc des Arts. I was imagining that these would be exclusively art studios and collectives, in my utopian vision of supporting artists in a beautiful public space. The mission statement of the Viaduc des Arts characterizes it as “a place of preservation for art, the 64 vaults welcome: wood, textile, paper and metal artisans, instrument makers and institutions which promote art and design professions.”

Alas, the spaces seem more biased towards ultra-luxe home decorating boutiques with names like Objets d’Exception and Zephyr. There are certainly a few active studios and working craftspersons in the vaults; Vill and I spied some glassblowing and printmaking in action on our visit. However, I perceived that the majority of the spaces were not dedicated to promoting art to the general public, but to provide the wealthy with a convenient and heartwarming place to buy expensive objets d’art. I revisited the viaduc again on…

Trip 3: 

After re-reading Ben’s assignment, I realized I was missing some information, as I hadn’t seen any truly bike-friendly areas. With some research, I realized I had missed the entire second half of Promenade Plantée, which extends from Jardin de Reuilly all the way to the edge of the city. Once again failing to get up early, I stopped by Marché Bastille, then walked along the viaduct at street level. I saw a poster indicating that the first Fête des Viaduc des Arts was supposed to be happening that day, but aside from some festive flags above the sidewalk, there was no fête to be seen. Hmm. Though, there were some well-protected rollerbladers taking advantage of the generously sized sidewalks that line the viaduct.

After you cross the modern pedestrian bridge arching over Jardin de Reuilly, you have to cross car traffic, and walk through street level park Allée Vivaldi to find the continuation of the Promenade, hence my initial mistake. At the end of the Allée, you end up at a tunnel which takes you into the below-grade section of the Promenade. This initial tunnel is a couple city blocks, with some unfortunate fake waterfalls inside it. But I must say, the light at the end of the dark tunnel is a bit mysterious and enthralling, transitioning you from one kind of space to the next. 

Like the elevated promenade, this section offers a space very separate from the city, but it feels quite different. It is a story below street level, so the sounds of traffic are distant, and you are surrounded on all sides by ivy-covered walls and a canopy of trees. While the elevated version truly feels like a planned city garden in many ways, this is something wilder. 

There are separate paths for speeding bikers and meandering pedestrians, I of course kept to the latter as to not anger or be injured by les Parisians à vélo. There are many little offshoots of the pedestrian pathway into the bushes and behind trees, making it seem as if there were little secret gardens everywhere, and as if the forest extended farther than clearly possible. I can’t imagine these in American parks, where spaces are as open as possible, no nooks for illicit behavior provided. Ben pointed out that these offshoots must be specifically for making out but sadly, I witnessed no sneaky lovers on that sunny Sunday afternoon. 

I pressed on through the park, seeing lots of kids learning to bike and rollerblade (the French just LOVE rollerblading) away from the danger of cars. Being away from the context of city blocks in this underground section, you lose sense of the distance you’ve traveled. Although google maps shows me that the above-grade and below-grade sections are roughly the same distance, in this long valley I felt I’d been walking for much longer. Near the end of the Promenade, it gets a bit confusing to follow, as you cross streets with car traffic and return to an elevated section of the park, running through other public parks as well. I kept thinking it had ended, and then I’d see one more sign out of the corner of my eye pointing towards “Promenade Plantée” and would continue on.

The promenade returns to above-grade level and splits at the end, one path leading you into Square Charles Péguy, and the other leading you out of the city to the Periphique highway, ending just as you reach the 2,458 acre Bois des Vincennes park. With yet another raw coquelet in my bag, I decided it wasn’t the day to tackle that monster, and left the Promendade for the regular, ugly, gritty streets to find the metro. Not really…it’s still Paris so it wasn’t too ugly, but it is still a jump to leave such a distinctly separate botanical sphere, and return to the regular urban sphere, still buzzing away.

Please check out the Friends of the Bloomingdale Trail, a grassroots organization (of which Ben is a founder and board president) which advocates turning Chicago’s unused Bloomingdale railroad into an elevated linear park that will be way awesomer than the Promenade Plantée. Please donate.

Vicarious Experience Project: #12

Ever-serious Evan Siple made a simple request: 

I want to see sandwiches.

Liz Lemon and I have a deep and abiding affection for the sandwich arts, so I have been happy to take on this challenge. Here are my ratings and reviews for all the sandwiches I’ve eaten in Paris thus far.

LES SANDWICHES AU RESTAURANTS

Poulet Kebab at Urfa Dürüm: 

Some may argue that anything wrapped is not a sandwich, but in this case, I’ll stand by Urfa Dürüm. This Kurdish spot is 2 blocks from our house and is my most frequent sandwich. When greeted at the door of the tiny shop, you order with Guy #1, who rolls out a fresh piece of dough and throws it in a brick oven, as Guy #2 manning the charcoal grill lays down skewers of marinated chicken. It takes 5-10 minutes for your sandwich to be done, but everything is so fresh and perfect I’m happy to wait and to watch my sandwich come together. Once your fluffy and steaming bread comes out (like a wafer-thin pita) your freshly grilled chicken is wrapped quickly with arugula, red onion, parsley, lemon, salt and pepper, and handed to you to eat immediately. Once, I asked them to wrap it à emporter to eat at home, but only got half way there before unwrapping it. My other favorite thing about this place that the dough guy is the only Parisian in my neighborhood who acknowledges that I’m a regular and waves every time I walk by now, making a little cloud from his floured hands and smiling brightly. Who wouldn’t want to buy a delicious sandwich from that guy?

Falafel sandwich at L’As du Fallafel: 

Probably the most famous cheap eats in Paris, their falafel sandwich is just the best, and recommended by Lenny Kravitz so you know it must be annoying good. We dragged visitor Shawnee there, and she wanted to order schwarma instead, which we gently discouraged. After finishing, she announced: “You’re right. That’s the best falafel I’ve ever had.” Move over, Sultan’s Market. A perfectly layered combination of moist falafel, rich fried eggplant (the eggplant is so key!), pickled red cabbage, cucumbers, hummus, harissa and a perfect pita definitely make this the best falafel sandwich I’ve ever had, and a contender for best sandwich overall in Paris. One feature I appreciate is the thoughtful strata of ingredients…there was still falafel and eggplant at the bottom of the pita, instead of only leftover sunken condiments. 

Fois gras sandwich at J. Milicent Boulangerie:
I usually pass on the traditional pre-made Parisian baguette sandwiches, ubiquitous at street stands and boulangeries…I can put two ingredients on a baguette at home thankyouverymuch, and they’re kind of a crapshoot when it comes to bread quality. (I have become intolerably spoiled in the baguette department. A friend here told me she cried the first time she went back to the US and bought a baguette, and I totally understand.) Anyway, a rare random decision in my usually over-researched eating tour of Paris, this boulangerie was a couple doors down from Deyrolle (a taxidermy store that is INSANE, go there) and we grabbed a sandwich to go on our way to Fondation Cartier. Fois gras is a decadent choice for a sandwich, but oh man…SO GOOD you guys. Even with the fois gras, it somehow managed to seem light and fresh with roasted tomato confit, a slice of cured ham, and a balsamic vinaigrette. I’ll be back soon to see if this was an isolated sandwich miracle. 

Croque Monsieur at Le Sancerre: 

Not really a traditional Croque Monsieur (maybe it wasn’t one?) but with beautiful presentation, with a drizzle of herbed olive oil and broiled tomatoes on top, it was a winner. Technically this was Jake’s sandwich, but I think I stole enough bites to comment on the matter. 

Lahmacun wrap at Urfa Dürüm: 
More of a snack sandwich, this is the same dough spread with minced meat, mint and vegetables before cooking, then wrapped with the same fillings as the regular sandwiches. A tasty treat, but I need two for a real lunch. 

Lamb kebab at Urfa Dürüm: 
Almost as good as the chicken, this one gets a slightly lower mark for chewy lamb. The chicken is so unbelievably tender, the lamb just can’t compete. Others disagree and prefer the lamb, so I recommend you try both.

Jambon & fromage sandwich at La Ferme Saint-Julien: 
The character of the fromagerie adds to the charm of the experience of this one…a tiny and adorbs fromagerie on Île Saint-Louis, you can also pick up a bottle of my favorite Sancerre and then sit by the Seine while chomping on your sandwich. Sandwich itself has delicious cured ham and a solid Comté, all very nice and simple, if not thrilling.

Charcuterie Sandwich at Eric Kayser:
Fine, but totally forgettable. I’ve totally forgotten it. 

Croque Monsieur at Le Nemrod: 
This was a highly recommended place for Croque Monsieur, so I was a little surprised to be underwhelmed…The bread was closer to wonder bread than baguette, and ended up being kind of gluey, if not tasty. 

Croque Madame at Folie’s Café: 
Meh. Acceptable but way overpriced. The sliced bread was decent, though. 

Lamb Kebab at Restaurant Marama: 
Tastes great at 2 am, but skimpy on the sauce and a bit dry. It’s rating is demoted based on…um, digestive unpleasantness. The sad thing is I tried this sandwich 3 separate times before I decided it was an abusive relationship.

LES SANDWICHES CHEZ NOUS

These ratings don’t really correlate to the eating-out ratings, as sandwiches at home can never be as magical. But still delightful, and always made better by baguettes from our two favorite neighborhood boulangeries, Julhès and Grenier à Pain.

The old standby! 
baguette, camembert, cured ham, dijon

Ooh, it’s Spring! 
baguette, chèvre, pear, honey

Favorite and fanciest sandwich! 
baguette, saucisson sec, dijon, boursin, arugula

Too lazy to poach eggs and cook green beans and potatoes for a real Salade Niçoise! 
baguette, tuna, capers, niçoise vinaigrette

Vicarious Experience Project: #11

Do you know what I love? Visitors. As postulated in the beginning of this project, they make you enjoy and see more of the city you live in, motivated by the want to be a good host, inspired by their excitement, and (let’s not kid around) the desire to demonstrate your expertise and non-tourist knowledge. Do you know what visitors are bad for? This project. Love you guys, but I get no work done when you’re around. So, here we are, with a write-up for an assignment actually experienced 2 1/2 months ago. Let’s see what I remember.

I received a catacomb assignment from two assigners, friend Amanda Kellogg and brother-in-law Christian Lachel. I didn’t really need to be assigned this one, as the catacombs were already on my personal list of destinations. I mean, so GOTH, right? And if you know me, you know that being ultra-goth is priority #1.

Christian: Sitting in Shanghai right now and the first place that comes to mind is the catacombs. Absolutely fascinated with the tour beneath the city. Particularly like the patterns created with the various bones and skulls. 

Amanda: If you haven’t already, go to the catacombs! It’s one of my favorite places in the world. Those people totally all died of the swine flu, too. True story.

This was one of the first assignments I tried to complete, but the catacombs were closed when I moved here, due to vandalism in September. In the French style, they were closed for une periode indeterminé with no hint of a reopening date. So, I set up a google alert, and waited. And waited. Four months later, voila! Ouvert! It wasn’t difficult to find company for the mission, so on a Wednesday morning (with the illusion that we’d all get work done in the afternoon) Jacob, Carolyn and Tyson headed underground with me. 

The entrance to the catacombs is an unassuming, small, green metal structure, as unremarkable as any anonymous park building. Entering, there is simply a ticket counter, a turnstile, and the stairs down. Just before entering you are warned by a sign in several languages: “WARNING: The ossuary tour could make a strong impression on children and people of a nervous disposition.” Not generally being of a nervous disposition, we began our descent. The narrow stone spiral stairs take you down 19 meters, almost 6 stories, and gives you a hint of the possible claustrophobia. I’ve never thought I was claustrophobic, but started to feel a bit nervous as they just went on and on and on with no reference point to tell you how far you’ve gone or how far you have to go. 

After a couple rooms with historical information that I glossed over, you begin the long walk towards the actual ossuary. It’s during this walk that I started to feel like a pioneering adventurer, Indiana Jones-style. I mean, certain gruesome sights ahead? Crumbling walls around us? Silent except for the crunching of gravel beneath our feet? C’mon. All I needed was a flaming torch and a whip, and perfection.

With other visitors far ahead or far behind, our little team felt like we were all alone below the ground, walking down the dimly lit stone and dirt hallway for what seemed like miles. After what felt like an hour (and was probably 5 minutes) we arrived at the entrance to the ossuary, with an ominous gate and the inscription “Stop! Here is the empire of Death.” 

And then bones. So many bones. Both sides of the paths are lined with walls of bones, arranged on the surface into patterns of skulls and tibia, turning human remains into design elements. In tour books, it’s often characterized as gruesome, morbid and creepy. In fact, the only thing that actually creeped me out was not the millions of bones, but water dripping onto my head. Unquestionably, I was most aware that these are real, decomposed bodies, when there was the possiblity of getting some splash of death in my mouth. Ew.

Aside from this, I mostly found the tunnels of bones to be breathtaking, in the sheer quantity of bodies and the utter sameness of them all. Completely stripped of identity (and indeed from the rest of their bodies) the bones give you a sense of the inescapability of corporeal life and death, all meeting the same end anonymously. Certainly, it was wholly different experience from my other recent death-focused assignment to Père Lachaise, where every person’s final resting place is marked in romantic and picturesque tombs, each more individualized than the last. 

We walked slowly through the tunnels, passing art students sketching skulls by flashlight, and tourists like me trying to get a decent photo without using flash. The different patterns and shapes created with skulls included crosses, hearts and one impressive freestanding keg shape. The only nod towards identity were plaques indicating the original burial place of the bodies: beyond that information, visitors are left to ponder grander ideas with inscriptions of quotes related to death and the afterlife placed here and there.

 « Where is death? Always future or past, scarcely is it present than it already is no more. »

These millions of bones were moved into the catacombs at the end of the 18th century, after it was clear that the Cimetière des Innocents was causing rampant disease in the Les Halles neighborhood. At that time, bodies were placed layer upon layer in the ground with no caskets, left to decompose in the same soil from which the city’s wells drew water. Filled beyond capacity, city officials outlawed cemeteries located in the city limits, and exhumed the cemetery in its entirety. Others would follow, and the final tally of bodies in l’Ossuaire Municipal is estimated to be 6 million.

A tourist attraction from its very inception, visitors started touring the underground in the early 19th century, before it was officially opened to the public in 1867. And it’s no wonder it has always drawn crowds of the curious: it is an environment at odds with the Haussmann’s boulevards above, yet also in concert with the city’s romantic and picturesque sensibilities. 

The defining characteristic of the Catacombs to me was its erasure of your sense of reference; in time, spatial relations, quantity and distance. The ceilings lower and rise as you walk, paths widen and shrink again to single file, and you turn corners so many times I felt we must be going in circles. And the bones are just endless. Even knowing that there were 6 million bodies resting here, we kept thinking that the ossuary would end, for sure, just around the corner. But it went on and on. The place is a landscape unto itself, insular and contorted. Although created by engineers, it feels primal and organic with its curved walls, clammy warmth and drippy ceilings. 

 

Once the ossuary ended, the path led us through some remains of the former mines, a unpredictable mix of elegant brick arches and rough stone walls. After we completed the official 2 km route, we headed back up to the surface, and this time I counted the steps (83). At the exit, bags and coats are checked to make sure you haven’t tried to smuggle a human-based souvenir. There were a few skulls sitting on the guard’s table, so clearly it’s an issue. We blinked in the light for a few minutes, seemingly surprised it was daytime out after an hour of darkness, and headed for post-catacombe café.

V.E.P. Postcard #5

Postcard for Vicarious Experience #5, sent to Carmel Lachel.

Assignment was: “Place de la Bastille square, including the remains of the fort along the Boulevard Henry IV.”