Paul from Paris

If a requiem mass were a book, that book might be Paris perdu.

Paris perdu is a coffee-table book written by a collective and featuring hundreds of interesting photographs; as befits the funereal tone, all of the latter are in black and white.

The book’s title means “lost Paris”, although the title also is a pun on “losing bets” or “a lost wager”.

The book’s subject is the loss suffered by various Paris neighborhoods through urban renewal, renovation, and development.

This reader found the text militant and ultimately superfluous: Paris perdu makes a strong case through its use of photographs. All of the photographs were chosen carefully, and many of them are intriguing. They make Paris perdu a great book for leisurely, repeated viewing, for any lover of Paris. I was particularly captivated, and dismayed, by a treasure of photographs of the Halles before their demolition and replacement by a commuter train hub and shopping mall (whose renovation is pending).

Paris perdu has two weaknesses, both rhetorical. First, it overstates its case at times. From a safe remove (of fifty or a hundred years), poverty or squalor can seem charming, or at least photogenic. Subdivision, cramped living quarters, and tuberculosis are ills on which this book does not long dwell. Second, instead of resting its case by presenting what is no longer, the book too often makes a point by contrasting the past (authentic, rich) with the present (standardized, enriching only for developers).

Paris perdu was published in 1991 by Editions Carré. It is no longer in print, but can be found in used bookshops or in libraries.

Factory

This is a short detective story.

The city of Paris awarded architect Paul Friesé for the 1903 facade of the Métropolitain (subway) factory at 179 rue de Bercy. For the award jury, “This factory entrance is almost monumental.”

Viewed from the street, the factory brings to my mind the Museum of Natural History, in New York, or turn-of-the-century university buildings.

The facade was part of a large factory complex. To my eyes, what it most brings to mind is a mosque, complete with minarets. The entrance is a giant arch.

Factory

The Métropolitain factory has been demolished. The Paris transit authority has offices on the site, in part of a nondescript line of postwar office buildings that would be equally in place in Birmingham or Tulsa as in Paris.

Paris is receptive to industrial techniques –the Eiffel Tower, the Grand Palais, even the Grande Arche de La Défense– but not to actual industry. I’m left with the impression that Paris –city leaders, planners and architects, ordinary citizens– think factories and industry are embarrassments, better forgotten. What else could explain the oblivion into which the Métropolitain factory has fallen?

In addition to the factory on the rue de Bercy, the Métropolitain commissioned numerous electrical plants or sub-stations that are scattered throughout Paris. Some of these were also designed by Paul Friesé and are still standing. They bring to my mind armories, tiny forts.

Architect Paul Friesé was a remarkable figure. I’d recommend Hugues Fiblec’s Paris Friesé 1851-1917: Architectures de l’âge industriel, published by Norma; and the French architecture institute’s biography, from which I’ve borrowed the uncredited photo and illustration to show the Métropolitain facory.

Friesé was born in 1851 in Alsace. When he was 19, war broke out between France and Germany. Friesé enlisted, but France soon lost the war, and Alsace. Friesé moved to Paris and studied architecture. His architectural practice featured superb industrial buildings, few of which survive today. In keeping with his time, Friesé brought artistry to industry. He traveled extensively, and seems to have participated actively in architectural exchanges on design and materials.

France’s loss of Alsace to the Prussians nourished many hopes for revenge or re-taking. When war broke out in 1914, Friesé enlisted. He was 63 years old. From frequent visits to Alsace, Friesé had many contacts. He also had a command of German and equestrian skills. With this background, Friesé served as an interpreter. Paul Friesé died in 1917, while visiting his son, Jean-Paul, on the front. (I’m sure that there’s a superb story behind this fact, befitting of a W.G. Sebald tale, and I hope some day to look into it further.)

43 rue des Couronnes

The apartment building on the rue des Couronnes by Charlet and Perrin is out of the way but well worth a trip.

The building won a prize from the city of Paris for its facade in 1905. This is what the jury had to say then:

“The jury was very interested by the combination of the most ordinary materials with stone. This gives an overall effect that is both simple and recherché, and makes it possible to achieve good-looking streets in modest residential neighborhoods.” (my very rough translation)

By “the most ordinary materials”, the jury meant brick. Among Paris building facades that won prizes in the early 1900s, many used brick, which compared to an all-stone building would have lowered construction costs and allowed for artistry.  Prizewinning architects often used brick to achieve structural or visual effects that wouldn’t have been possible in stone.

This having been said, for this reader the operative word in the jury’s comments is: combination. What interested the jury was not only how “the most ordinary materials” were used, but especially how brick was combined with stone. In this building, stone is used to frame the entry door, to frame windows, and as ornamentation. For this visitor, what’s remarkable is how stone is used merely to suggest the idea of an apartment building, or to signal to passersby that this is a proper apartment building.

The jury also made a comment that seems to have been pressing and prominent in 1905: architecture –good architecure– is for everybody. Whether moved by égalité or fraternité, the best-facade jury sought out and rewarded modest buildings situated in popular neighborhoods.

The rue des Couronnes is in the 20th arrondissement, usually thought of as working class and lacking tourist attractions. When I first saw the building at 43 rue des Couronnes, I thought of Amélie Poulin: it looks like a holdover (or transplant) that time forgot. The building is alone, bordered on one side by a park and on the others by groups of postwar buildings. Whereas number 43 is on the street, with a sidewalk and stores, its neighbors seem embarrassed or ashamed: they huddle at a remove from the street.

Of all the buildings that won a prize from the city of Paris for their facade, I think this one was most worth the trip.
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The city of Paris gave an award to Henri Adolphe Auguste Delgane for one of the best building façades built in 1906.

I love this building, because to my eyes, it’s a poor man’s building set in a rich man’s neighborhood. Put differently, it’s a building that I find democratic or egalitarian.

Viewed from the street, the corner building is modest compared to its neighbors. It’s made mostly of brick. The ground floor has some boutiques but otherwise keeps quiet.

What makes this building special? What makes it stand out?

Two points come to the mind of this spectator.

First, the architect puts creative use of stone and sculpted elements a few floors above street level.

Second, the architect reserved his most exuberant treatment for the building’s corner. Delgane departs from the neighborhood convention (corners at a 90° angle) with a rounded corner, with large windows and balconies on upper floors.

sober storefronts

corner

facade details

5 rue de Luynes

“Finally, we’ll describe the charm of detail, of invention, of inspiration from nature for the sculpted elements that seduced all of us in an apartment building on the rue de Luynes, by the architect Pradelle.”

These were the remarks made by the jury when it chose Pradelle and his building at 5 rue de Luynes as having one of the six priezwinning facades in Paris for the year 1904.

Pradelle’s building looks typically Parisian, Haussmannian. Nothing makes it stand out from its neighbors, in a quiet part of the 7th arrondissement.

Pradelle’s inventiveness lies principally in his use of decoration, especially vegetal and floral motifs. The ironwork of the building door signals or echoes these motifs.

floral motif; "swastika" motif unfortunate in hindsight