Charras: then, now and tomorrow?

I have recently developed something of an obsession with Courbevoie on the Paris city limits, an archetype of the rapidly changing suburban town. There is something completely tangible about this kind of place, offering scenes of urban contrast and conflict that are today rarely visible within Paris.

A recent post on the always interesting Paris-bise-art blog lead me to one particular site in the town, but I was particularly pleased when the trail branched off into on a voyage of urban exploration.

The blog featured the Caserne Charras, a military barracks dating back to the 18th century. Although a listed 'historic monument', it was demolished in the 1960s with only the frontspiece of the building being preserved. Bizarrely this was moved across town and rebuilt at the bottom of the Becon park, a place that has become something of a home for reclaimed buildings - the Scandinavian and Indian pavillions from the 1878 World Fair can also be found here. 

Seen face on the building is still impressive, but move slightly to the side and you'll see that it is barely three metres thick. Somewhat incredibly though it is still in use, offering a shelter and storage space for the park keepers.

The caserne had occupied a large part of what is today the centre of town, so what replaced it? The answer is a huge development also known as Charras, which includes shops, hotels, appartments and leisure facilities - as well as a very unusual (concrete) rooftop park.  

In theory it is the perfect example of faulty urban planning in the 1960s and 70s, and yet it very nearly works. The sky-scraping wealth of the La Defense business sector is clearly visible just alongside, but here we are dealing with something that is very much a second division development. Whereas La Defense is a magnet for workers, shoppers and visitors from across the Paris region, Charras is a very local hub.

Much of La Defense is of a similar vintage, but - for the most part - it has been regularly smartened up and adapted to contemporary tastes. Charras on the other hand has remained firmly in the 1960s. There is a sense of abandonment here. Mirroring the abandoned cars and shopping trollies, the park is a windswept concrete wilderness, used only by the occasional dog walker or as a meeting point for pockets of teenagers.

The shopping centre is a series of short passages with bronze mirrored ceilings. Posters advertise the merits of the development, but even the photos in these show the world as it looked in 1972. It many ways it reminds me of a similar development in my old home town, a now disused shopping centre which has become a 'zombie survival experience'.

Walking along the empty staircases and corridors, it would not be too much of a surprise to come across a zombie here too. Instead of offering a glimpse of the undead though, these paths instead take you to places you do not expect. Along one, the entrance to an indoor market. Down another - sinister - staircase, an ice-rink and swimming pool complex. Plunging further down into the Dantesque depths, a twelve-lane bowling alley.

The biggest surprise though comes on the rooftop level. From what seems to be a small, dated shopping complex, you are suddenly thrown out into a massive expanse of concrete. Few people venture up here, but all are dwarfed by the scale of the high-rise towers that seem to have sprouted from the roof of the shopping centre.


Windblown and slightly disorientating, it is not an immediately pleasant environment, and yet it soon becomes strangely fascinating. It offers panoramic views, and at random intervals, a selection of mysterious geometric forms that have no clear purpose.

Looking around, you also discover that not all is mineral. There are trees and flowers here, as well as small patches of grass. Water is also evident, both in puddles captured on the surface and in the outdoor municipal baths below.

It feels more like a playground than a park. It is a reminder that architecure once encouraged us to explore and appropriate, rather than to be carefully guided. Buildings had mysteries, offering us opportunites to make new discoveries and the freedom to create our own relationships with them. This is a building that has no clear entrance or exit, which can be accessed at many different levels for many different reasons. It offers places to play, to work, to shop or just to relax. And yet it will soon be radically changed.

There is no room for in the new Courbevoie for such an idiosyncratic structure. It is a town that wants to move upmarket, away from an industrial past. The population of the town has increased by around 75% since the Charras development was built with newcomers being generally richer and younger. The municipality is now pushing for a more modern development, offering the same stores and brands as those found in neighbouring La Defense, and concrete will undoubtedly soon be replaced by grass, glass and steel.

An artists impression of what the development may look like. No specific project has as yet been chosen.

Birdhouses for the soul in a village without a heart

On the website of the Village Royal, a private, pedestrianised street near the Place de la Madeleine, the location is described as 'prestigeux village au coeur de Paris'. Walking along its polished stone slabs one question comes to mind - how many villages have Dior and Chanel outlets?

Its current aspect stems back to 1992 when the street was completely renovated, with the architect - Jean-Jacques Ory - seeking to recreate the 'esprit d'une rue de village'. Everything was therefore rebuilt 'à l'ancienne', but of course nothing in the Village Royal is authentic, starting with the name. Originally built as a market known as the Marché d'Aguesseau at the end of the 18th century, it was for a long time home to bakers, fishmongers and numerous butchers. It's real name today is the Cité Berryer, an identity it adopted in the 19th century after the market was shut down. 

With its potted palms, the 'village' has seemingly been dressed up as some kind of miniature Saint Tropez, but its principal goal is clearly to promote the exclusive brands that occupy the shop units. There is though - temporarily - one exception to this rule. The single tree in the street is currently providing a home to birdhouses designed by 30 different artists, architects and designers. 

The installation, called 'Commissariat pour un arbre #1', was put together by French artist Mathieu Mercier. Although more likely to frighten any birds that accidently find themselves in the village than offer them a comfortable home, the creations do at least offer a touch of colour and humour in this most pretentious of environments.

Guillaume Gillet - a centenary in concrete

French architect Guillaume Gillet would have been 100 this year, and to celebrate this anniversary an exhibition has been organised in Royan, home of his one true masterpiece, the Notre Dame church. A recent visit to the town gave me the opportunity to learn more about the designer of the Palais de Congrès in Paris (a construction I find both dreadful and fascinating), and discover how a key part of Paris almost looked very different today.

In the introduction to the exhibition, the word 'controversial' is used to describe the creations of Guillaume Gillet. Although he himself declared in 1965 that "nous vivons un âge d'or de l'architecture", public opinion today generally does not share this viewpoint. Nevertheless, his whole career was spent working in a post-war period known as 'les trentes glorieuses' in France, when large areas of the country needed to be quickly rebuilt and funds were abundant. It was an age when anything seemed possible, and architects were given vastly more freedom to imagine constructions than they have today.   

Indeed, freedom seems to be something of a leitmotif throughout Gillet's career. After studying under Auguste Perret (see previous post), Gillet found himself a prisoner of war before his career had even begun. He spent nearly five years as a prisoner in Germany, but he was far from inactive. After befriending several other prisoners with a similar background to his own (and who he would later work with throughout his career), he designed and decorated a small chapel within the prison camp.

Perhaps eternally marked by this experience, Gillet spent most of his career designing both churches and prisons. It was one of his first constructions though that would prove to be his chef d'oeuvre, the Notre Dame de Royan church. Gillet himself became so associated with the building that he requested his ashes to be placed here after his death - a request that was finally accepted in 1996, 9 years after his death.

During the Second World War, the town - an important port on the Atlantic coast - was occupied by the German army, and by the end of the conflict over 85% of the town's buildings had been destroyed. Rather than just disappear from the map, the town authorities decided to give the town a completely new identity, centred around a prominent new structure, the Notre Dame church. 

Built entirely in concrete, it is a spectacular construction, albeit one already in need of renovation. Although a material derided by many, the church truly shows the capacities of concrete to produce the monumental. V-shaped columns shoot skywards around the structure, supporting a roof which is only 8cm thick. Spiral staircases and sweeping balconies complete a building which impresses through it's somewhat austere simplicity.  

The high salt content in the sea sand used to make the concrete is slowly corroding the metal reinforcements. Coupled with the aggressive coastal conditions, the church is suffering, particularly on rainy days. On the day I visited, large dustbins had been placed all around the church to catch the numerous leaks.

As with many architects, the career of Guillaume Gillet was marked not so much by what he built but also by the projects that never made it off the drawing board. Two of the most significant of these were planned for riverside spots in Paris. The first was a proposition for a permanent Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace alongside the Seine at the very edge of the city. Based very much on his Pavillon de la France which was built for the 1958 Universal Exhibition in Brussels, it would have made an impressive addition to the Paris skyline in a position where finally nothing has ever been built.

Sketches for a proposed Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace, © Fonds Guillaume Gillet

Gillet's other principal project was one that came much closer to being built, and one which would have been far more controversial. For over 15 years, Gillet - with associate René Coulon - worked on propositions for buildings to replace the underused Gare d'Orsay on the city's left-bank (later of course to become the world-renowned Musée d'Orsay). Having become little more than an unneccesary additional stop for suburban trains, the station was long scheduled for demolition, and the two architects produced a series of propositions.

An initial rather banal plan for a headquarters building for the Air France company was not developed, but a design for a luxury hotel and conference centre did later win a competition (ahead of an even more radical project from Le Corbusier among others). However both changing tastes and a financial crisis put paid to the project before work could begin. The station was eventually given protected status, and a decision was made to preserve it and transform it into a museum. 

A proposed HQ building for Air France dating from 1957 (top) and the much more daring (and accepted) proposition for an international hotel from 1961. © Fonds Guillaume Gillet  

Gillet's proposed building is not a bad one (and certainly more interesting than the hotel and conference centre he did later build at Porte Maillot), but it would have radically changed the left-bank skyline. However, the Eiffel tower had of course also done something similar a century earlier.

It will remain though an architecture of the invisible, a ghost structure that will now haunt me when I pass by the Musée d'Orsay. To remember Gillet though, it is far better to return to Notre Dame de Royan, as he himself was to do.

Guillaume Gillet, architecte des trentes glorieuses
Until 21st June 2012
Musée de Royan
31 avenue de Paris
Royan

Inside the Palais d'Iéna

A temporary installation by an artist friend at the Palais d'Iéna gave me the opportunity to explore the often difficult to access interior of Auguste Perret's masterpiece.

As part of the current 'Ca et Là' (This and There) exhibition running at a variety of sites across Paris, Italian artist Davide Bertocchi has installed a pièce entitled "Apologie de l’aléatoire (Pendolo)" on the monumental staircase inside the Palais d'Iéna. The sculpture is a play on Foucault's pendulum - by being resolutely anchored to the ground, and moving at the same time as the rest of the world! 

The choice of this spot in the Palais d'Iéna was essential for Davide, as the staircase - which sweeps in two separate directions - provides an interesting dynamic for the piece. It is us who move around the sculpture whilst it remains solidly and regally positioned in the centre. 

Despite being a close neighbour to the Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris and the Palais de Tokyo, the Palais d'Iéna has no links to the art world, and Davide told me that the building managers were initially hesitant about accepting his creation. However, now that it is in place, he informs me that they are delighted with it!

Built at the end of the 1930s, at roughly the same time as it's more well-known neighbours (the Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris and the Palais de Tokyo - which make up two wings of the same building - as well as the Palais de Chaillot (Trocadero)), it was originally designed as a museum.  

Perret - who has often been mentioned before on this blog (here, and here, and here) both designed and built the structure (with his Frères Perret company, the city's foremost concrete specialists), and it is often considered to be his greatest achievement. However, the building has never really had the occupiers it deserves, and has therefore always remained off the city radar.

Quite a well-known structure is also close by.

The concrete here gives an almost organic feel to the interior

The first occupier was the Musée National des Travaux Publics, which had the misfortune to open just as war broke out, and was also possibly the dullest museum in Paris. Displaying little more than scale models of bridges, dams and mines, it attracted fewer than 30,000 visitors a year and was closed in 1955.

Today it is used by the Conseil économique et social, a rather obscure assembly which advises French lawmaking bodies on questions of social and economic policies. Given its role, it has remained closed off to the general public for much of its existence, but recently there has been a move to more openness - which is reflected in their acceptance of a temporary art installation.

The interiors have kept a certain vintage feel

The hémicycle under a magnificent glass rotunda

Traces of a previous existence.

You can see Davide Bertocchi's installation in the Palais d'Iéna until May 21st, weekdays from 9am - 5pm. To enter the building you will need to present an identity card or passport, but once past security, you have free access to much of the building. Photography is accepted if it is not for commercial purposes.

The Palais d'Iéna
Place d'Iéna, 75016
M° Iena

The Archeology of Street Art

For the last two years, the view from my window has been of an extra-large gorilla painted by urban artist Zoo Project. Since the beginning of the year, the beast has slowly started to disappear behind fresh concrete walls.

The gorilla was the most visible element of a miniature street art gallery, situated on the site of a building, demolished in 2008, which had contained elements that dated back to the early 18th century. When the building was demolished, what would we have learned from that period if urban artists had been active when it was originally built? And if the current building (and it's neighbour of course) lasts three hundred years what will future generations learn from today's urban artists?

The creations of urban artists are designed to be ephemeral, focussing largely on the subjects and concerns of the day. Most fade away, are removed or are replaced by more recent creations, but others - like the gorilla - may find themselves preserved by accident. Like frozen mammoths slowly thawing out from under centuries of arctic ice, these creations may give future societies a glimpse of how other beings once lived.

One website, Graffiti Archeology, has spent ten years grouping together photographs of graffiti hotspots in order to record individual creations for posterity and to show how these sites have developed over the years. Less an archeology, it is more a careful archiving of creation, enabling us to travel backwards and forwards through time.

Such sites - if they survive into a digital future - may prove valuable, but they will never provide the surprise of the unexpected unearthing of a historic treasure. This one is now going into hibernation, perhaps to one day play the role of a future prehistoric cave painting.