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arcticdementor · 7 years ago

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The real-estate market in any sophisticated city reflects deep aspirations and fears. If you had a feel for its ups and downs—if you understood, say, why young parents were picking this neighborhood and drunks wound up relegated to that one—you could make a killing in property, but you also might be able to pronounce on how society was evolving more generally. In 2016, a real-estate developer even sought—and won—the presidency of the United States.

In France, a real-estate expert has done something almost as improbable. Christophe Guilluy calls himself a geographer. But he has spent decades as a housing consultant in various rapidly changing neighborhoods north of Paris, studying gentrification, among other things. And he has crafted a convincing narrative tying together France’s various social problems—immigration tensions, inequality, deindustrialization, economic decline, ethnic conflict, and the rise of populist parties. Such an analysis had previously eluded the Parisian caste of philosophers, political scientists, literary journalists, government-funded researchers, and party ideologues.

…

At the heart of Guilluy’s inquiry is globalization. Internationalizing the division of labor has brought significant economic efficiencies. But it has also brought inequalities unseen for a century, demographic upheaval, and cultural disruption. Now we face the question of what—if anything—we should do about it.

A process that Guilluy calls métropolisation has cut French society in two. In 16 dynamic urban areas (Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, Toulouse, Lille, Bordeaux, Nice, Nantes, Strasbourg, Grenoble, Rennes, Rouen, Toulon, Douai-Lens, and Montpellier), the world’s resources have proved a profitable complement to those found in France. These urban areas are home to all the country’s educational and financial institutions, as well as almost all its corporations and the many well-paying jobs that go with them. Here, too, are the individuals—the entrepreneurs and engineers and CEOs, the fashion designers and models, the film directors and chefs and other “symbolic analysts,” as Robert Reich once called them—who shape the country’s tastes, form its opinions, and renew its prestige. Cheap labor, tariff-free consumer goods, and new markets of billions of people have made globalization a windfall for such prosperous places. But globalization has had no such galvanizing effect on the rest of France. Cities that were lively for hundreds of years—Tarbes, Agen, Albi, Béziers—are now, to use Guilluy’s word, “desertified,” haunted by the empty storefronts and blighted downtowns that Rust Belt Americans know well.

…

In our day, the urban real-estate market is a pitiless sorting machine. Rich people and up-and-comers buy the private housing stock in desirable cities and thereby bid up its cost. Guilluy notes that one real-estate agent on the Île Saint-Louis in Paris now sells “lofts” of three square meters, or about 30 square feet, for €50,000. The situation resembles that in London, where, according to Le Monde, the average monthly rent (£2,580) now exceeds the average monthly salary (£2,300).

The laid-off, the less educated, the mistrained—all must rebuild their lives in what Guilluy calls (in the title of his second book) La France périphérique. This is the key term in Guilluy’s sociological vocabulary, and much misunderstood in France, so it is worth clarifying: it is neither a synonym for the boondocks nor a measure of distance from the city center. (Most of France’s small cities, in fact, are in la France périphérique.) Rather, the term measures distance from the functioning parts of the global economy. France’s best-performing urban nodes have arguably never been richer or better-stocked with cultural and retail amenities. But too few such places exist to carry a national economy. When France’s was a national economy, its median workers were well compensated and well protected from illness, age, and other vicissitudes. In a knowledge economy, these workers have largely been exiled from the places where the economy still functions. They have been replaced by immigrants.

…

This is not Guilluy’s subject, though. He aims only to show that, even if French people were willing to do the work that gets offered in these prosperous urban centers, there’d be no way for them to do it, because there is no longer any place for them to live. As a new bourgeoisie has taken over the private housing stock, poor foreigners have taken over the public—which thus serves the metropolitan rich as a kind of taxpayer-subsidized servants’ quarters. Public-housing inhabitants are almost never ethnically French; the prevailing culture there nowadays is often heavily, intimidatingly Muslim.

…

At a practical level, considerations of economics and ethnicity are getting harder to disentangle. Guilluy has spent years in and out of buildings in northern Paris (his sisters live in public housing), and he is sensitive to the way this works in France. A public-housing development is a community, yes, and one can wish that it be more diverse. But it is also an economic resource that, more and more, is getting fought over tribally. An ethnic Frenchman moving into a heavily North African housing project finds himself threatening a piece of property that members of “the community” think of as theirs. Guilluy speaks of a “battle of the eyes” fought in the lobbies of apartment buildings across France every day, in which one person or the other—the ethnic Frenchman or the immigrant’s son—will drop his gaze to the floor first.

Most places where migrant and native French cultures mix, Guilluy expects, will evolve as did the northern Paris suburbs where he works. Twenty years ago, these neighborhoods remained a hub of Parisian Jewish life; nowadays, they’re heavily Arab. The young men living in them feel a burning solidarity with their Muslim brethren in the Middle East and often a loathing for Israel. Jews have faced steady intimidation in northern Paris at least since 2002, when the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks overlapped with the Palestinian “second intifada.” Violence is rising. July 2014 saw a wave of attacks on Jewish businesses and synagogues in the suburb of Sarcelles. Jews have evacuated some municipalities north of Paris, where, until recently, they were an integral part: Saint-Denis, La Courneuve, Aubervilliers, Stains, Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, Trappes, Aulnay-sous-Bois, and Le Blanc-Mesnil. Many Jews still live safely and well in France, of course, but they cluster together in a smaller number of secure neighborhoods, several of them on Paris’s western edge. Departures of French Jews to Israel run to about 7,000 a year, according to the Jewish Agency of France. Others go to the U.S. and Canada. The leavers are disproportionately young.

Guilluy has written much about how little contact the abstract doctrines of “diversity” and “multiculturalism” make with this morally complex world. In the neighborhoods, well-meaning people of all backgrounds “need to manage, day in, day out, a thousand and one ethno-cultural questions while trying not to get caught up in hatred and violence.”

…

France’s most dangerous political battles play out against this backdrop. The central fact is the 70 percent that we just spoke of: they oppose immigration and are worried, we can safely assume, about the prospects for a multiethnic society. Their wishes are consistent, their passions high; and a democracy is supposed to translate the wishes and passions of the people into government action. Yet that hasn’t happened in France.

Guilluy breaks down public opinion on immigration by class. Top executives (at 54 percent) are content with the current number of migrants in France. But only 38 percent of mid-level professionals, 27 percent of laborers, and 23 percent of clerical workers feel similarly. As for the migrants themselves (whose views are seldom taken into account in French immigration discussions), living in Paris instead of Bamako is a windfall even under the worst of circumstances. In certain respects, migrants actually have it better than natives, Guilluy stresses. He is not referring to affirmative action. Inhabitants of government-designated “sensitive urban zones” (ZUS) do receive special benefits these days. But since the French cherish equality of citizenship as a political ideal, racial preferences in hiring and education took much longer to be imposed than in other countries. They’ve been operational for little more than a decade. A more important advantage, as geographer Guilluy sees it, is that immigrants living in the urban slums, despite appearances, remain “in the arena.” They are near public transportation, schools, and a real job market that might have hundreds of thousands of vacancies. At a time when rural France is getting more sedentary, the ZUS are the places in France that enjoy the most residential mobility: it’s better in the banlieues.

…

Guilluy came to the attention of many French readers at the turn of the millennium, in the pages of the leftist Paris daily Libération, where he promoted the American journalist David Brooks’s book Bobos in Paradise. Guilluy was fascinated by the figure of the “Bobo,” an acronym combining “bourgeois” and “Bohemian,” which described the new sort of upper-middle-class person who had emerged in the late-nineties tech-bubble economy. The word may have faded from the memory of English-language readers, but it stuck in France. You can find Bobo in any good French dictionary, alongside bébé, Dada, and tutu.

For Brooks, “Bobo” was a term of endearment. Our nouveaux riches differed from those of yesteryear in being more sensitive and cultured, the kind of folks who shopped at Restoration Hardware for the vintage 1950s Christmas lights that reminded them of their childhoods. For Guilluy, as for most French intellectuals, “Bobo” is a slur. These nouveaux riches differed from their predecessors in being more predatory and less troubled by conscience. They chased the working-class population from neighborhoods it had spent years building up—and then expected the country to thank them.

…

Since the age of social democracy, we have assumed that contentious political issues inevitably pit “the rich” against “the poor” and that the fortunes of one group must be wrested from the other. But the metropolitan bourgeoisie no longer lives cheek-by-jowl with native French people of lesser means and different values. In Paris and other cities of Guilluy’s fortunate France, one often encounters an appearance of civility, even consensus, where once there was class conflict. But this is an illusion: one side has been driven from the field.

The old bourgeoisie hasn’t been supplanted; it has been supplemented by a second bourgeoisie that occupies the previously non-bourgeois housing stock. For every old-economy banker in an inherited high-ceilinged Second Empire apartment off the Champs-Élysées, there is a new-economy television anchor or high-tech patent attorney living in some exorbitantly remodeled mews house in the Marais. A New Yorker might see these two bourgeoisies as analogous to residents of the Upper East and Upper West Sides. They have arrived through different routes, and they might once have held different political opinions, but they don’t now. Guilluy notes that the conservative presidential candidate Alain Juppé, mayor of Bordeaux, and Gérard Collomb, the Socialist running Lyon, pursue identical policies. As Paris has become not just the richest city in France but the richest city in the history of France, its residents have come to describe their politics as “on the left”—a judgment that tomorrow’s historians might dispute. Most often, Parisians mean what Guilluy calls la gauche hashtag, or what we might call the “glass-ceiling Left,” preoccupied with redistribution among, not from, elites: we may have done nothing for the poor, but we did appoint the first disabled lesbian parking commissioner.

…

For those cut off from France’s new-economy citadels, the misfortunes are serious. They’re stuck economically. Three years after finishing their studies, three-quarters of French university graduates are living on their own; by contrast, three-quarters of their contemporaries without university degrees still live with their parents. And they’re dying early. In January 2016, the national statistical institute Insée announced that life expectancy had fallen for both sexes in France for the first time since World War II, and it’s the native French working class that is likely driving the decline. In fact, the French outsiders are looking a lot like the poor Americans Charles Murray described in Coming Apart, failing not just in income and longevity but also in family formation, mental health, and education. Their political alienation is striking. Fewer than 2 percent of legislators in France’s National Assembly today come from the working class, as opposed to 20 percent just after World War II.

Unlike their parents in Cold War France, the excluded have lost faith in efforts to distribute society’s goods more equitably. Political plans still abound to fight the “system,” ranging from the 2017 Socialist presidential candidate Benoît Hamon’s proposals for a guaranteed minimum income to those of his rival, former economics minister Emmanuel Macron, to make labor markets more flexible. But these programs are seen by their intended beneficiaries as further proof of a rigged system. The welfare state is now distrusted by those whom it is meant to help. France’s expenditure on the heavily immigrant banlieues is already vast, on this view; to provide yet more public housing would be to widen the invitation to unwanted immigrants. To build any large public-works project is to do the same. To invest in education, in turn, is to offer more advantages to the rich, who’re best positioned to benefit from it. In a society divided as Guilluy describes, traditional politics can find no purchase.

…

Guilluy has tried to clarify French politics with an original theory of political correctness. The dominance of metropolitan elites has made it hard even to describe the most important conflicts in France, except in terms that conform to their way of viewing the world. In the last decade of the twentieth century, Western statesmen sang the praises of the free market. In our own time, they defend the “open society”—a wider concept that embraces not just the free market but also the welcoming and promotion of people of different races, religions, and sexualities. The result, in terms of policy, is a number of what Guilluy calls “top-down social movements.” He doesn’t specify them, but they would surely include the Hollande government’s legalization of gay marriage, which in 2013 and 2014 brought millions of protesters opposing the measure onto the streets of Paris—the largest demonstrations in the country since World War II.

French elites have convinced themselves that their social supremacy rests not on their economic might but on their common decency. Doing so allows them to “present the losers of globalization as embittered people who have problems with diversity,” says Guilluy. It’s not our privilege that the French deplorables resent, the elites claim; it’s the color of some of our employees’ skin. French elites have a thesaurus full of colorful vocabulary for those who resist the open society: repli (“reaction”), crispation identitaire (“ethnic tension”), and populisme (an accusation equivalent to fascism, which somehow does not require an equivalent level of proof). One need not say anything racist or hateful to be denounced as a member of “white, xenophobic France,” or even as a “fascist.” To express mere discontent with the political system is dangerous enough. It is to faire le jeu de (“play the game of”) the National Front.

…

Since Tocqueville, we have understood that our democratic societies are emulative. Nobody wants to be thought a bigot if the membership board of the country club takes pride in its multiculturalism. But as the prospect of rising in the world is hampered or extinguished, the inducements to ideological conformism weaken. Dissent appears. Political correctness grows more draconian. Finally the ruling class reaches a dangerous stage, in which it begins to lose not only its legitimacy but also a sense of what its legitimacy rested on in the first place.

#city journal #christopher caldwell #christophe guilluy #read the whole thing

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architectnews · 3 years ago

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French Houses: Residential Buildings in France

French Houses, Residential Buildings France, Homes Images, Architecture Project Photos, Designers

French Houses: France Properties

New Residential Buildings in France, Europe – Contemporary Properties

post updated 19 March 2022

New French Houses

Contemporary Residential Architecture in France

17 Mar 2022 Aperture, Chamonix-Mont-Blanc Design: Chevallier Architectes photo : Solène Renault pour Chevallier Architectes Aperture Chalet, Chamonix-Mont-Blanc “I was going to walk in the footsteps of my grandfather” – that was the motivation of the architect when he agreed to renovate this residence built by his grandfather, also an architect. And with a particularly emotional commitment, the grandson began a contemporary reinterpretation of the main residence, two generations apart.

2 Aug 2020 House H2, Corsica House H2 on Corsica

25 June 2020 Luxury Villa in Nice Sean Connery South-of-France Villa, Nice

31 May 2020 MON House, Montpellier, south of France Design: (ma!ca) architecture photo : Ivan Mathie MON House and Brick Extension Montpellier This new French property with its large north-facing garden, had very little natural light and the living space on the ground floor was segmented into too many sections with low ceilings. Load-bearing walls and partitions have been removed in order to create a homogeneous and airy place.

26 May 2020 Around the Net House, Courdimanche, Val-d’Oise department, Île-de-France, northern France Design: Martins | Afonso atelier de design photo : Mickaël Martins Afonso Around the Net House in Courdimanche In this fascinating residential property, space is used but has yet to be lived in. The design captures sensations and sequences.

14 May 2020 BON Farmhouse, Saint-Clément-de-Rivière, Hérault department, Occitanie region, South of France Design: (ma!ca) architecture photo : Mickaël Martins Afonso BON Farmhouse in Saint-Clément-de-Rivière This large French farmhouse proeprty is sited on a vast plot on the outskirts of a village. The residence had recently undergone a clumsy renovation, which deformed the classic farmhouse archetype and the owners did not feel at home.

28 Apr 2020 Contemporary House in Castries, Hérault department, South France Design: (ma!ca) architecture photo © Julien Kerdraon TRA House in Castries, South France In the historic centre of a well-preserved village, opposite the church, a wine barn and its adjoining house were to be restructured in order to create an intimate and special living environment.

1 Apr 2020 Mayflower Apartment Building in Nantes

New French Houses 2018 – 2019

30 Sep 2019 Le Pine Villa, Saint-Tropez, French Riviera, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, southeastern France Architects: SAOTA photo : Adam Letch Modern Villa in St Tropez This modern French villa is a family summer house in Saint Tropez, a contemporary interpretation of traditional Mediterranean Riviera architecture.

10 Sep 2018 Dortoir Familial Ramatuelle House, Ramatuelle, Var department, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, southeastern France Design: NADAAA, Architects image courtesy of architects office New Var Property For centuries, the enclosed courtyard has been overlaid on various geographic settings—each time transformed according to the climate, rituals, and construction practices of the place. A vehicle to capture the outdoors within the building, the courtyard is defined by its interiority.

26 Mar 2018 Glass House on the Cap d’Antibes, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, southeastern France Architects: David Price Design photograph : Hervé Hôte House on the Cap d’Antibes, French Riviera British designer David Price, who works out of offices in Provence and on the Côte d’Azur, together with his Anglo-French-American team, has completed a show-stopping ‘Glass House’ for a British client on the Cap d’Antibes.

9 Jan 2018 St Tropez Villa, Saint-Tropez, Var department, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, southeastern France Architects: SAOTA photograph : Adam Letch St Tropez Villa Situated just above the beach of Plage de Pampelonne and a stone’s throw from Le Club 55 – the embodiment of the St Tropez lifestyle – the location called for seamless indoor-outdoor living.

New French Houses 2015 – 2017

17 Dec 2017 GOM House, Gignac, Hérault département, Occitanie region, southern France Design: (ma!ca) architecture photograph : Julien Kerdraon GOM House in Montpellier The villa was built in the 90’s. Its floor plan presents very particular proportions: a 15 metres long entrance hall which leads inside the house and a linear perspective view opening up to the garden.

25 Nov 2017 Off Grid Villa in Camargue, The Camargue, South of France Architect: Blueroom, The Netherlands image © Blueroom Off Grid Villa Camargue The team researched the design potential for building a patio villa on a 1.000 m2 site, in a region in the south east of France. The Client requested a striking, contemporary design that blends into its natural context.

27 Jun 2017 Chalet Whymper, Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, eastern France Design: Chevallier Architectes photograph : Solène Renaud Chalet Whymper in Chamonix-Mont-Blanc Chevallier Architectes took on this project when it was close to being abandoned. There were many constraints, but the architecture team studied the file and proposed solutions that would make it possible to successfully complete the construction, including optimization of the space.

7 Jun 2017 The Fishermen’s House, Bonifacio, Corse-du-Sud department, Corsica Design: Buzzo Spinelli Architecture photograph : Serge Demailly The Fishermen’s House in Bonifacio The original commission aimed for a fishermen facility made of 20 workshops. But after in-depth analysis of the site, its history, and the municipality needs; Buzzo Spinelli Architecture proposed to enhance the program by adding a sales area and an urban space.

15 May 2017 SPE House, Spéracèdes, French Riviera – Var department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, southeastern France Design: ELLENA MEHL Architects photo © Hervé ELLENA New House in Spéracèdes Built on the side of a hill, the landscape follows horizontal lines, formed by terraced gardens and stone walls also called “restanques” in the south of France.

9 May 2017 Quiet House in Gignac

10 Feb 2017 House H2 on Corsica

5 Jan 2017 Dag Cottage in Chamonix-Mont-Blanc

18 Mar 2016 Villa M1 in Hyères les Palmiers

17 Feb 2016 House RT 2012 in Riec-sur-Bélon

11 Feb 2016 XS Extension of a house in Saint-Didier-au-Mont-d’Or, commune in the Metropolis of Lyon, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, eastern France Design: PlayTime / AA – Playtime Agence d’Architecture photograph © Studio Erick Saillet House in Saint-Didier-au-Mont-d’Or On paper the equation is simple: a 45 m2 extension to a house to accommodate a comfortable kitchen and living area. In practice, the challenge was much more complicated. How to extend a large 19th century house without betraying its character or resorting to imitation or superficial stylistic effects, whilst keeping the right distance?

12 Jan 2016 Chalet Soleya in Les Houches, Coupeau, Les Houches, Haute-Savoie department, Rhône-Alpes region, south-eastern France Design: Chevallier Architectes photo from architect Chalet Soleya in Les Houches This project started with a mountain guide’s home. Because the house was originally self-built, it had a unique soul.

6 Jan 2016 Bioclimatic House in the Gulf of Morbihan, Baden, Brittany, North West France Design: Patrice Bideau photograph : Armel Istin Bioclimatic House in the Gulf of Morbihan

More Contemporary French Houses online soon

French Homes – visit our archive page for previous posts on contemporary French properties

Location: France, western Europe

New Buildings in France

French Architectural Projects

French Architecture Design – chronological list

French Architecture News

French Architect studios – design firm listings

French Housing

New Houses

French Architecture

French Buildings

Comments / photos for the Contemporary French Residential Buildings page welcome

The post French Houses: Residential Buildings in France appeared first on e-architect.

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anothergracekellyblog · 8 years ago

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“MINIATURE MONACO” | National Geographic, April 1963

Article and photographs by Gilbert M. and Donna Kerkam Grosvenor

Portrait of THS Prince Rainier and Princess Grace by Bates Littlehales

SOURCE: My scans @ Google Photos | *Full issue* | *Article only*

SOURCE: Bates Littlehales at Getty Images

SOURCE: Gilbert M. Grosvenor at Getty Images

MINIATURE MONACO

All winter long my wife Donna and I had thought about visiting Monaco. We would swim in the blue Mediterranean, bask in Europe's finest climate, royalty in glamorous Monte Carlo, and savor life in one of the world's smallest and strangest countries.

Besides, Monaco was making news by arguing with its powerful neighbor, France, 368,125 times its size. After seven centuries of self-rule, this toy Riviera principality was teetering on the edge of political disaster

By treaty, Monaco agreed to conform with French political, military, and economic interests. Now France wanted Monaco to impose taxes on businesses based in the principality. If foreign as well as French firms were to be taxed, carefree little country, with its air of musical-comedy charm, might never be the same again.

22,000 Residents, 2,000,000 Visitors a Year

Coming by car from Italy, we first sighted Monaco from one of the world's most beautiful mountain drives, La Grande Corniche. From our high vantage point we beheld the entire principality, cupped between the foothills of the French Alps and the sea.

We could take it all in at a single glance, for 370-acre Monaco is less than half the size of Central Park in New York City. It reaches only three miles along the Mediterranean shore and 200 to 1,200 yards inland.

Monaco’s permanent population consists of 3,400 native Monegasques and 18,600 foreigners with residential privileges. Yet to this tiny principality, pressed on three sides by France, come two million pleasure-seeking visitors each year.

Directly below us spread Monte Carlo, most famous of Monaco's three districts. The huge baroque casino stood out among pastel-hued hotels and apartment houses crowded against the sea.

Fronting the pocket-size harbor lies Monaco’s next district, La Condamine, a residential and business section. Here international firms operate happily, sheltered by Monaco's liberal tax laws, and wealthy or retired people clip their coupons with never a worry about Monegasque income tax.

Beyond the square stone-jettied harbor, atop a headland, sits the third district and capital, Monaco-Ville - the Rock - crowned by the fortress palace of Prince Rainier III. Monaco's renowned Oceanographic Museum, a temple of the sea, is built into the Rock's sheer cliff.

Farthest west lies Fontvieille, an industrial section, not an official district. It turns out such varied products as pharmaceuticals, plastics, tobacco, precision instruments, ceramics, glass, and cosmetics.

Conqueror Comes in Friar's Garb

Donna pointed to the Rock. "That's where it all started," she said, “Do you remember the story of how the early Grimaldis took that fortress in the 13th century?"

It was quite a coup. On a night in 1297, drowsy soldiers inside the fortress on the Rock were shaken awake by a knock on the gate and a friar's plea for a night's lodging. Once admitted, the intruder drew a sword and slew the guards. He hailed companions, and they captured the Rock. The bold adventurer was François (the Spiteful) Grimaldi, scion of aristocratic seafarers from Genoa.

Now, more than six and a half centuries later, a Grimaldi, Prince Rainier III, still ruled the Rock and the principality lying below us.

Like a giant amphitheater facing the sea, Monaco's crowded, sun-splashed buildings rose above the harbor, a stage where luxurious yachts rode side by side.

The magnetism of the setting reached out to us. We descended to the sea.

The glistening yachts, like competing starlets, vied for top billing. Multicolored standards waving from their sterns reminded me of the parade of flags fronting the United Nations headquarters in New York. Donna counted the flags of 12 nations.

On board, professional crews polished brass or varnished brightwork. Although hailing from scattered ports, the crews sported identical blue-denim trousers and white T-shirts their yacht's name emblazoned in blue across the front. The uniform, I learned later, is adopted by virtually all boats visiting Monte Carlo.

At the quay’s end I looked up and across to the Rock and Monaco-Ville clinging to it. Atop the palace flagstaff fluttered a white standard bearing the crest of Grimaldi. It signified the Prince was in residence.

It seemed incredible to me that one family could control the principality so long. How could the Grimaldis hold off the Spanish, the Genoese, Venetians, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and survive two World Wars?

Donna had a theory that seemed likely: The Grimaldis had cleverly kept pace with their times; they never let tradition interfere with progress.

In the 14th century, the wealthy Grimaldis ruled the waters off Monaco and increased their fortunes by levying a droit de mer, or sea tribute, on all goods carried by vessels passing within sight of the Rock.

For the next three centuries, even though outgunned by larger fleets, the Grimaldis held on to their tiny fief by negotiating protective treaties with both France and Spain, and by marrying their offspring into the wealthy and influential families of Europe.

In the 1860's when Monaco's treasury ran low, Prince Charles III - Prince Rainier's ancestor - sold the rights to his country's struggling casino. A shrewd businessman named François Blanc (White) obtained a 50-year operating concession. He guaranteed Monaco a substantial share of profits from the casino.

François Blanc transformed the pumpkin-sized principality into a Riviera playground. Grand dukes arrived in special trains to try their luck. Monegasque fishermen beached their boats, exchanged fish for chips, and became nimble-fingered croupiers.

Blanc's casino profits ran high; the saying still lives that "whether you bet red or black, White will win." The House of Grimaldi won, too. In 1869, Prince Charles III abolished taxes in Monaco.

Albert I Founded Museum of the Sea

Science, ballet, and international conclaves were introduced to Monaco by Charles's son, Prince Albert I. He inherited the early Grimaldis' love for the sea and was fascinated by marine biology, making 30 scientific voyages. In 1910 he opened the Oceanographic Museum to exhibit his astounding collection of specimens. Jacques-Yves Cousteau, renowned undersea explorer, now directs the museum, which last year attracted more than 850,000 visitors and scientists.

Prince Albert, noting that Monaco's climate suited subtropical plants, also started the Exotic Garden. Today it ranks with the finest cactus gardens in the world.

The present Prince, Rainier III, has his ancestors' business sense as well as their flair. He has sparked a fantastic economic boom and a $200 million dollar, five-year expansion project, which includes adding 100 acres of land to Monaco. And he has given his principality a beautiful Princess, the former Grace Kelly of Philadelphia and Hollywood.

Wedding Crowds Jam Monaco

As the days passed into weeks, we explored the principality on foot. Most charming to us was the antique district of Monaco-Ville, which remains unblemished by 20th-century architecture. Its buildings run together like a jigsaw puzzle and the narrow crooked streets, forbidden to automobiles, lead to secluded garden restaurants crammed into small courtyards.

In stark contrast is Monaco-Ville's main square, which bursts with tourist buses and foreign-licensed autos. A good part of the palace's 100-man, whistle-blowing guard - the carabiniers - struggle frantically in the square for control.

At a sidewalk cafe I asked the proprietor what caused the tremendous crowds that day.

"The big wedding,' he replied simply.

"What wedding?" Donna inquired.

"Madame, Prince Rainier's wedding, of course," he answered, annoyed.

"But that was in 1956,” I protested.

"Quite true, and ever since we've had the crowds,” he retorted.

Not many days later, Monaco exploded with excitement. It was Grand Prix week. Europeans jammed the principality in early June for one of several Grand Prix races to determine world auto-racing supremacy.

Monaco's Grand Prix is the most famous auto race through city streets. Stands line the course. Spectators hang from apartment and hotel balconies.

"We reserve race-view rooms years in advance," a hotel manager told me.

Yachts flock to the harbor and anchor close to the breakwater. The owners are hoisted to the masthead in bosun chairs for a bird's-eye view, helicopters churn overhead; light planes circle endlessly.

At race time the loudspeaker crackles, "Ladies and gentlemen, Their Serene Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Monaco."

In his red Porsche, Prince Rainier speeds through the traditional ouverture du circuit. Beside him sits the Princess in a Kelly green dress and white turban.

The racers line up for the start. The red and white flag dips, drivers clutch out, the machines scream, shudder, then leap forward trailing streaks of burned rubber and dense exhaust clouds.

I stand atop protective hay bales at the first turn. Donna remains behind a wall near the track on the Avenue de Monte-Carlo.

Red, green, blue, and metallic blurs of machines and drivers merge into a maelstrom of color as the cars roar toward me at 60 miles an hour. Squinting through the telephoto lens, I sense a dangerous squeezing pattern forming in the heavy traffic.

Suddenly one car nudges another, triggering a chain reaction. Three entangled cars fishtail badly, practically into my lap. A viciously spinning wheel shears loose from its axle. In my rangefinder, I see it coming.

The wheel bounces, gathers momentum, and sails directly at me. Forgetting pictures, I flip backward, cameras flying, and hit the pavement flat out.

An elderly Monegasque track official, standing but three feet away, remains frozen, and the wheel plows into him like a steamroller. He is knocked unconscious. An alert Red Cross stretcher team speeds him away to Monaco Hospital. My enthusiasm for close-up pictures vanishes.

After 82 minutes the lead cars have toured 50 laps - the halfway mark. The field narrows as drivers and machines fail - the three-car crack-up, broken fuel pumps, sheared drive shafts, fractured gearboxes.

At 94 laps a New Zealander, Bruce McLaren, leads the Ferrari team's Phil Hill, an American, by 30 seconds; at 98 laps the lead narrows to 12 seconds; the checkered flag drops as McLaren finishes a scant two seconds ahead of Hill, 1961 world champion.

High Fashions Bring High Prices

After Le Grand Prix, the Monte Carlo summer season shifts into high gear. The small, fashionable dress shops display the newest creations from Paris, Milan, and Rome. Leotard-like outfits of stretch silk by Pucci, the rage of the Riviera, sell for S100 and up, and matching silk shoes and purse for another $50. Antique shops are willing to sacrifice authentic Louis XIV chairs for only a few thousand dollars each.

Monte Carlo's hotels begin to fill up. Of them all, only the Hotel de Paris is really plush. Moreover, it is really expensive - three-room suites can cost $120 a day.

As one Monegasque put it, "If the Hotel de Paris were cheaper, the status seekers would avoid it."

At our hotel, the furniture was only almost antique. Our bathroom was twice the size of our bedroom, and wooden steps led up to the tub - four feet above the concrete floor.

One morning I ordered orange juice for breakfast, and the incident provided an amusing sidelight on Monegasque hotel thinking. The menu listed the beverage for sixty cents, and so when the bill exceeded three dollars, I inquired about this small mistake.

The manager apologized profusely and telephoned the chef. After a lengthy conversation, he reported, "No mistake, monsieur. The oranges were very small today. It took more than usual to fill your glass."

We were learning how Monaco keeps its economy in the black. Tourists and the commerce they generate provide some 40 percent of the Monegasque income.

Anything bought in Monaco carries a sales tax of about 3 percent. All services - hotels, restaurants, entertainment - are taxed 9 percent. The principality also runs a tobacco monopoly and operates highly profitable radio and television stations, among the most powerful in Europe.

In 1885 Monaco issued its first stamp, and unwittingly struck another rich vein of national revenue. No one could have predicted the 20th-century popularity of philately, or that Monaco's stamps would eventually contribute 8 percent of its budget.

Strangely, while it is still Monte Carlo with its casino and glamorous life that draws visitors, gambling profits now bring in only about half as much as Monaco's stamps.

Home of 600 "Presidents”

So successful is this Monegasque economy that the country levies no personal income tax and no property tax; corporate taxes are modest. Yet it is probably the only country left in the world with no national debt.

This economic lure has helped spark the prosperity. Foreign firms need pay only a moderate fee to incorporate in Monaco, but their activities must be real. Holding companies and letter-drop corporations are not allowed.

Monaco presently has 600 corporations. Directeurs (presidents) outnumber croupiers - although the croupiers' tips alone exceed the average annual 'fee' of 10,000 French francs ($2,046) paid the directeurs.

Ironically, Monaco's very success had threatened to bring about her downfall. Her tax inducements figured in the rift between President de Gaulle of France and Prince Rainier.

Paris argued that it was unfair for French businessmen to incorporate in Monaco and thus avoid paying taxes to France.

However, Monegasques countered that France must approve all applications from both French and foreign firms desiring to transfer their activities to Monaco. If France did not wish her citizens to set up business there, she could deny them incorporation.

"Surely, the true source of the French-Monegasque dispute must be obscured,” a Monegasque told me. “Taxation would help France so little, but hurt Monaco so much."

An Italian businessman put it more bluntly: "If the French clamp down, I'll move my offices to Geneva within the month."

We were eager to interview Prince Rainier about his plans, as well as to photograph the princely family. Finally, approval came from Georges Lukomski, palace photographer and assistant press attaché.

Arriving early, we asked Georges to show us around the Palace of Monaco. We started in the inner courtyard which separates the offices, formal reception rooms, and visiting royalty suites from the private living quarters.

"We'll take the back way; it's quicker," Georges announced as we mounted a dark, musty stairway - little changed since the 15th century.

The ornate rooms we passed through were predictably antique, richly leafed in gold and dressed in velvets. Although George Washington never slept there, Georges assured us that numerous popes, cardinals, emperors, and kings had.

Through the labyrinth of halls and stairways, we twisted, glimpsing paintings and relics of the early Grimaldis. Back on the ground floor, we passed what appeared to be a naval torpedo with a seat and controls to guide it.

"That's the Prince's skin-diving submarine,” Georges said casually. "He uses it sometimes when he collects specimens for the Oceanographic Museum.”

We emerged into a sunlit garden where children's swings and sandboxes shared space with the flowers, balls, tricycles, and toy trucks lined the gravel path. An inflated swan, plastic raft, and two tiny paddles drifted in a blue-tiled swimming pool.

Prince Rainier and Princess Grace entered the garden, Prince Albert, then four, and Princess Caroline, five, skipped behind them.

They were so informal that Donna momentarily forgot her much-practiced curtsy.

"Welcome to Monaco," the Prince said.

The fresh, natural beauty of the Princess surpassed her familiar photographic image. But it was the Prince who surprised me. His portraits fail to express fully his youthful exuberance and dynamic personality.

"Does your GEOGRAPHIC article include all the Riviera?" Princess Grace inquired.

"No, your Highness," I replied. "We're photographing only the Principality of Monaco."

"That's wonderful!” the Prince exclaimed in flawless English. He studied in British schools and served as a French liaison officer with a Texas division in World War II.

"I trust you're interested in seeing more than just the casino," the Prince commented.

"We're exploring all the principality this summer," I assured him, "even the blueprints for land expansion."

The Prince lit up. "Good. Then you know of the new land we're gaining both from the railroad and from the sea.”

"Next time you visit Monaco,” he said, "the trains will run underground - not along the waterfront as they do today." (I could vouch for the latter: Our hotel room overlooked not only the harbor but the more than 50 trains a day that rumbled through the principality.)

"You know, don't you," the Prince asked, "that we're using the rock from the rail tunnel to create new land along the shore? We badly need the new industrial sites in Fontvieille and space for new hotels, offices, and apartments in Monte Carlo."

Although the Prince did not mention it, Monaco's growing acres come from an additional source: French soil bought as earth-fill from the owners of nearby hillsides.

"Don't forget to visit our industries in Fontvieille," the Prince said, bidding us farewell.

Welcome to a Woman's Kingdom

So, next day, Donna and I called on the flourishing Lancaster Beauty Products factory. It further emphasized the puzzling relationship between France and Monaco.

Monsieur Georges Würz, the owner, welcomed us into his "woman's kingdom".

"Our lipsticks, facial creams, and extracts for problem skin are sold mostly to the Common Market countries," he told us. "In order to meet the demand for our products, we employ workers from the French towns of Beausoleil and Menton."

"And what would happen if France blocks her roads leading into Monaco?" I asked, recalling newspaper speculation.

"The workers would be jobless, and I would be bankrupt," M. Würz replied.

He opened a door, stepped across the threshold, and announced, "I am now in France. The frontier divides my factory. Under French law I can only store goods here; but where you stand, in Monaco, I produce our produits de beauté!"

This brought to mind the Monte Carlo apartment building where tenants in the front reside in Monaco and pay no taxes, while those in back live in France-among them a French tax collector.

The noon whistle blew, and people scurried from their offices. We left the factory to join throngs headed beachward for a two-hour lunch in the sun.

At the popular Calypso restaurant, on the water, we sat amid bikini-clad patrons who ate pizza and salade niçoise or did the twist to a blaring jukebox.

It was here we observed a most remarkable feat of legerdemain, which revealed, among other things, why Monegasque working girls carry bulky handbags. Each bag contains at least a lunch, beach towel, bathing cap, and bikini. Magician-like, out in the open, the girls shed dresses and underclothes and skillfully don bikinis with a minimum loss of motion or modesty. The execution was brilliant, if devious.

Donna confessed that her admiration failed to spark the necessary courage for emulation. "This is no place for a novice," she said.

Syndicate Controls the Casino

We left until last a visit to the casino that brought reigning royalty to Monaco for a century, We had already been briefed by Monsieur A. G. Bernard, the casino's public relations manager.

While few non-Monegasques know this clever, philosophical gentleman, everyone knows the syndicate he represents: Société des Bains de Mer et du Cercle des Etrangers de Monaco – the Monaco Sea Bathing Society and Foreigners Club.

SBM controls the Casino of Monte Carlo, the Hôtel de Paris, Monte Carlo Beach, the high-stakes Casino d'Eté, modern bowling alleys, and even a jet-helicopter passenger service. A fabulously wealthy Greek shipowner, Aristotle Socrates Onassis, is a large stockholder in SBM. He lives aboard his luxurious Monaco-based yacht, the Christina.

As the short, wiry M. Bernard ushered us into his office, I immediately asked, "How can I expect to win at your casino?"

"Ah! Winning depends upon how you play," he responded. "But winning is not really the primary motivation of our patrons. For some, it is relaxation or release from worry or loneliness; for the system players, it is a study in mathematics; for the tourists, the casino is a novelty; and for a few, gambling is a disease, as destructive as any on medical record."

I asked permission to photograph the casino.

"This is possible, but only if you bring your own models, We must respect the privacy of our patrons who may wish to remain without names or faces - you understand?"

With that, he handed me a pass, "To eliminate temptation for madame, I have issued you a joint card for the casino, monsieur." He smiled, "She cannot go without you."

"That's fine,' I said, “but you still haven't told me how I should play to win."

"Ah, yes, there is one foolproof way," M. Bernard began. "You pass through the salons ordinaires into the salons privés. Select a heavy bettor, station yourself behind his chair, keep your hands in your pockets... ," he paused ever so slightly, "and watch. If you gamble in this way, you will always win."

With that advice, we entered another world, another era. Nothing had been spared in creating this dazzling monument to French baroque architecture and design. Gold-faced moldings, pastel frescoes, and muraled ceilings arc interrupted only by crystals dripping from huge chandeliers suspended above the array of green-felt tables.

We followed M. Bernard's instructions and walked through the salons ordinaires. The attendant bowed as we stepped from wooden floors onto plush, piled carpet and into the hushed salons privés. These are private only in that an extra payment is required, and guests must be properly attired for the privilege of wagering higher stakes.

Voices intermingled with the crisp clicking of chips, the metallic tick of spinning balls in roulette wheels, and the tinkle of the jewel-encrusted wrists reaching to place bets.

At the center table, a small group gathered around a tall, slender Italian, his deep suntan accentuating graying sideburns. Only his eyes hinted of nervousness as he tossed out four-thousand-dollar plaques. In fifteen minutes he won 125,000 francs, more than $25,000. Then he turned and scooped up his winnings. Dropping a $100 tip on the table for the croupiers, he strode briskly away.

This was a night we would not soon forget. Thanks to M. Bernard's foolproof method, we had won a vicarious fortune.

Happy Land of Make-believe

We have come to know Monaco as many things. She is well ruled by one of the oldest and shrewdest dynasties in Europe. She enjoys a booming economy. Since our visit the tiny fief and France have worked out a settlement of their fraternal spat. In the future, French businessmen who settle in Monaco must pay taxes, For those who have already acquired residency, however, the favorable economic climate remains unmarred.

But Monaco emerges, ultimately, as a land of make-believe. She suits the fairy tale, even to the handsome Prince who marries the beautiful Princess and lives in a palace overlooking the sea, hopefully, happily ever after.

As long as enough people want to believe in fairy tales come true, there will always be a Monaco somewhere.

THE END

#grace kelly #national geographic #gilbert grosvenor #donna kerkam grosvenor #bates littlehales #princess grace of monaco #1963 #prince rainier #monaco #phil hill #jacques cousteau #grand prix de monaco #monte carlo #lancaster cosmetics #musée océanographique de monaco

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nancy-dc · 8 years ago

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Montpellier has definitely been the most interesting city I’ve seen in south of France from a merely architectural point of view. There just so much in terms of contemporary buildings and many others are currently in the making. For sure we can say that the city of Montpellier is no stranger to urban development. Internationally acclaimed architects and engineers have been called to revitalize and reshape the city, names as Jean Nouvel, Ricardo Bofill, Zaha Hadid, Massimiliano Fuksas, Philippe Starck. A new very interesting TGV station designed by a Paris-based architecture and engineering firm Marc Mimram or a new housing tower designed by Sou Fujimoto just to name a few.

The modern side of Montpellier with its contemporary architecture is absolutely fascinating. Mixed with the beauty and charm of its old historic heart.

Let’s have a look at what you can find here in Montpellier!

GARE SAINT-ROCH |JEAN-MARIE DUTHILLEUL|

The interior of this train station was the very first discovery here in Montpellier. The exterior is purely neo-classical; admire it and then step inside and go to the first floor to walk in this newly renewed nave-like space.

JEAN-MARIE DUTHILLEUL

Place Auguste Gilbert, 34000 Montpellier

TOUR LE TRIANGLE |PIERRE TOURRE|

The tallest building you can find in Montpellier. Think about the awesome view you can get from its top!

PIERRE TOURRE

Allée Jules Milhau, Immeuble Le Triangle, 34000 Montpellier

ANTIGONE |RICARDO BOFILL|

On the edge of the old city lies Antigone, a vast area with a mix of private and social housing. You will definitely notice its monumental scale and neo-classical buildings designed by Ricardo Bofill. The neo-classical style makes the whole site look grandiose and even more ancient than it actually is (the project started in 1979 and completed in 2000) reminding of a Greek or Roman ancient development. It’s an entire district that spreads around a central axis that connects the historic centre to the newly developing area along the river Lez.

RICARDO BOFILL

Place du Nombre d’Or, 34000 Montpellier

MÉDIATHÈQUE EMILE ZOLA |PAUL CHEMETOV|

MÉDIATHÈQUE EMILE ZOLA

PAUL CHEMETOV

218 Boulevard de l’Aéroport international, 34000 Montpellier

L’ARBRE BLANC |SOU FUJIMOTO|

The White Tree is called. The 17-sories housing tower that Sou Fujimoto was called to design for the city of Montpellier. Of course I can’t wait to see it finished. It will be a good excuse to come back.

L’ARBRE BLANC

Place Christophe Colomb, 34000 Montpellier

FACULTÉ D’ÉCONOMIE

Site Richter, Avenue Raymond Dugrand, 34960 Montpellier

NUAGE |PHILIPPE STARCK|

Strange to find a building designed by a product designer. Philippe Starck is very well-known for the pieces of furniture and products he designed but in Montpellier he went further stepping into the field of architecture with ‘Le Nuage’ fitness and wellness centre. He conceived a bubble-like facade made of an inflatable membrane that uses a special material called ETFE (the same used for the Aquatics Centre in Beijing and the Allianz Arena in Munich).

NUAGE

PHILIPPE STARCK

769 Avenue de la Mer-Raymond Dugrand, 34000 Montpellier

LA MANTILLA | JACQUES FERRIER |

I have to admit that I didn’t know about this enormous development but it’s pretty impossible to miss it if you walk in Port Marianne area. It’s so big and the facade so geometrical and white that you see it. The name that identifies the project says everything: mantilla is a lace or silk scarf worn by women, mainly in Spain, over the head and shoulders. That’s what this geometrical pattern recalls creating a figurative connection with Mediterranean architectural language. In this case this pattern takes the form of a lattice that wraps around the balconies and loggias.

JACQUES FERRIER

812 Avenue de la Mer-Raymond Dugrand, 34000 Montpellier

PORT MARIANNE

Port Marianne is the district in the south-east part of Montpellier in which all the newly realised buildings are. It’s an area in full expansion so just walk every street and you’ll see something eye-catchy for sure.

HÔTEL DE VILLE |JEAN NOUVEL|

On the banks of the Lez, in Port Marianne area, the City Hall won’t go unnoticed. It is a bold blue-green-goldish structure, like a three-dimensional puzzle made of numerous layers of reflective steel and glass.

JEAN NOUVEL

1 Place Georges Frêche, 34267 Montpellier

HOUSING |BERNARD BUHLER|

The use of colour is what identifies the architectural language of Bernard Buhler. He mainly realised residential projects and the common feature is a pop of colour, usually used for the balconies, as in this case.

BERNARD BUHLER

rue des Justes, Zac Rive Gauche, Port Marianne, Montpellier

SCHOOL ANDRÉ MALRAUX |DOMINIQUE COULON|

A nursery, primary school and dedicated playground housed in these dynamic and playful stacked volumes. A remarkable building for its functionality and aesthetics.

DOMINIQUE COULON

34000, Impasse Joan Miro, 34980 Montpellier

LYCÉE GEORGES FRÊCHE |MASSIMILIANO FUKSAS|

A school of hotel management designed by the Italian architect Massimiliano Fuksas with his wife Doriana Fuksas. The sculptural shape of the building is wrapped with thousands of anodised aluminium cases in triangular shapes. Each one is unique and has its specific barcode so that it can be identified for its specific situation on the façade.

MASSIMILIANO FUKSAS

401 Rue Le Titien, 34000 Montpellier

MÉDIATHÈQUE PIERRES VIVES |ZAHA HADID|

As usual Zaha Hadid’s buildings are easily recognisable for their strong lines and identity they convey. In Montpellier she designed a sculptural concrete and glass block that accommodates a multimedia library but even a public archive and sports department. The main entrance is very impressive with that massive and solid-stone-looking cantilevered canopy.

PIERRES VIVES

ZAHA HADID

907 Rue du Professeur Blayac, 34080 Montpellier

OLD MONTPELLIER

Among all this glass and steel the historic centre of Montpellier is such a jewel with La Place de la Comédieas its focal point. It’s such a beautiful area filled with charming alleys with leaning medieval buildings and around every corner seems to be another peculiar square with a fountain or an olive tree. Such a Mediterranean ambience.

LA GRANDE MOTTE

When in Montpellier don’t miss the chance to go to La Grande Motte! This is one of the rare cases in which a city is entirely planned and designed from scratch by one single architect. Jean Balladur is the architect that worked for 30 years on designing every single aspect of this seaside resort built in the 60’s, imposing what was his vision of the ideal city. Just as Le Corbusier did with Chandigarh in India. It’s an inspiring urban experiment that turned a formerly sand dunes’ desert area into a holiday resort with architecture inspired by the Inca pyramids in Mexico and the modernist architecture that Oscar Niemeyer designed in Brazil. Every single building is different and has its own features and characteristics but always linked to the same coherent aesthetic that gives architectural unity to the whole resort. Jean Balladur envisioned the “architecture of vacation” as a place far away from the commonplace, as a place in which space and time have to be different from those of everyday life so that the vacation resort has to be a place of escape. Such a wonderful place to discover! If you head to Montpellier keep one full day to explore La Grande Motte and then let me know what you think of it.

Now a couple of things I want to ask you.

First of all, have you been in Montpellier? If so let me know writing a comment down here. I want to know what you think of it.

And if you know the city maybe you even know other interesting or remarkable places that I should add?

I collected here everything regarding architecture to visit that you wouldn’t normally find in an ordinary travel guide. My intention is to make it useful for all the architecture lovers out there so if you have suggestions just write me and let me know.

Lastly it would be very much appreciated if you can share it with anyone you think may be interested in having a look at this guide.

MONTPELLIER |FRANCE| – ARCHITECTURE TRAVEL GUIDE Montpellier has definitely been the most interesting city I've seen in south of France from a merely architectural point of view.

#architecture #France #Jean Nouvel #la grande motte #massimiliano fuksas #Montpellier #philippe starck #Ricardo Bofill #sou fujimoto #travel #travel guide #Zaha Hadid

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wikitopx · 6 years ago

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Roughly halfway between Paris and Disneyland.

Noisy-le-Grand is a tourist destination in its own right. But if you’re staying here you’ll have a lot of other interesting things to hunt down in the area. The Disneyland resort, with two theme parks and accompanying amenities and attractions, isn’t far to the east. While you can take short trips to various châteaux, museums, parks and worthwhile sights in the local suburbs. The elephant in the room is the City of Light, which you can reach in 15 minutes flat on the suburban rail network. There’s nowhere like it for culture, dining and historic monuments. Let's explore the best things to do in Noisy-le-Grand.

[toc]

1. Avant-Garde Architecture

Noisy-le-Grand’s population doubled in just 15 years up to 1990. And the cause was a mass of futuristic residential developments. These were led by some big-hitting architects like France’s Dominique Perrault, and Manuel Núñez Yanowsky and Ricardo Bofill from Spain.

See the Arènes de Picasso, a modernist housing complex around an octagonal square, completed in 1985. At the east and west end are two immense cylinders embedded in the buildings and nicknamed the Camemberts by residents.

Also check out Perrault’s sleek building for the EISSE engineering school, and the awe-inspiring Espaces d’Abraxas, a Utopianist housing estate inspired by Hellenistic architecture and a set for the Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2.

2. Château de Champs-sur-Marne

This beautiful early-18th-century property had a line of illustrious owners including the Princesse de Conti, daughter of Louis XIV. But the most lauded would be Louis César de La Baume Le Blanc who was friends with the preeminent literary figures of the day, inviting Voltaire and Diderot to visit.

The Château had another cultural moment in the 1800s when Louis Cahen d’Anvers welcomed Marcel Proust.

You can come for a cultivated day out, relaxing in 85 hectares of grounds and gardens landscaped by Claude Desgots a nephew and follower of André Le Nôtre, inventor of the French formal style.

The interiors are divine and have been picked for Hollywood movies like Dangerous Liaisons (1988) and Marie-Antoinette (2006).

3. Paris Sights

Outlying Noisy-le-Grand is one of the last eastern suburbs before you hit the Seine-et-Marne countryside. But even so, the Gare de Lyon is 15 minutes away on the RER and that can be your gateway to this incomparable city.

You probably don’t need us to tell you all the memorable things you can do in Paris, but we’ll jog your memory and give you some inspiration:

You can saunter arm-in-arm beside the Seine, or take a sightseeing cruise; scale the legendary bell tower at Notre-Dame; amble the 19th-century covered passages; get some snaps of world icons like the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe; get arty Montmartre. But that’s just the merest taste of what lies in store a few minutes away.

4. Paris Culture

If your idea of a perfect day is one spent immersed in a museum or gallery, Paris has weeks’ worth of things to get through.

There’s no hyperbole in that statement either, as the count of world-beating museums for art, decorative items, archaeology, engineering, natural history, and many other fields runs into the hundreds.

You’ll need several days to get through the headliners like the Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, Musée de l’Orangerie, Musée Marmottan, and Musée National du Moyen Âge.

In the evenings there’s the high culture at the Palais Garnier for ballet and the Opéra National (book well in advance for both), but also legendary nightlife and a superb live music scene.

5. Église Saint-Sulpice

Long before these modern wonders, Noisy-le-Grand was where the Merovingian King of the Franks, Chipelric I had his court in the 6th century.

And this medieval church is supposedly on the site of an ancient oratory built by Chipelric in memory of his son Clovis, assassinated on the orders of Fredegund, an estranged ex-wife.

The current church was finished in the 1200s but was remodeled several times up to the 1800s to keep up with contemporary fashion. This was all stripped away during a renovation between 2011 and 2013 when the portal, bays, vaults, and choir were stripped back to their stark Romanesque glory.

6. Château de Ferrières

This stupendous Neo-Renaissance palace was ordered by Baron James de Rothschild in the middle of the 19th century. Napoleon III inaugurated the property in 1862, and it is seen as the most lavish 19th-century château in France.

In the 1960s it was the estate was in the hands of Guy de Rothschild who put on regular parties, and Grace Kelly, Brigitte Bardot, and Audrey Hepburn were all guests.

Call in between May and September to see the sumptuous decoration and furniture; this was used as a backdrop for a music video by Beyoncé and Robert Altman’s Prêt-à-Porter in 1994.

7. Disneyland Park

The original theme park at Disneyland Paris is Europe’s most popular attraction. Simply put, it’s the dream holiday for every child up to 12. But is full of things that will get a thumbs up from older members of the family.

The Sleeping Beauty Castle, based on the namesake movie, sets the scene in Fantasyland. And from there you’ll have five other “Lands” to journey into, with tons of rides and shows based on Disney characters and movies.

Some of the many high points are Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril, Space Mountain, and Star Tours. Both reopen in 2017, updated with characters and scenes from the new Star Wars prequels.

8. Walt Disney Studios Park

This newer theme park opened its doors in 2002 and beckons you into the magic of the movie-making business. At the Toon Studio, little ones will get to meet their favorite animated characters on the lot and hop on all kinds of rides inspired by the Pixar movies.

The Production Courtyard has a Hollywood theme, with shows like CinéMagique, which combines a performance by a live actor with moving images projected onto the screen behind. Last up is the Backlot, going into the nuts and bolts of movie production and staging spectacular stunt shows like Moteurs… Action!

9. Château de Vincennes

Ten minutes on the RER is a fearsome castle at the eastern gates of Paris. It’s the only medieval fortress around Paris, and in its day the keep was the tallest in Europe, towering to 52 meters.

These 800-year-old walls have a lot of tales to tell, of Kings of France who married, lived and died here in the 13th and 14th centuries.

England’s Henry V also passed away in the keep in 1422 after being injured in the Siege of Meaux in 1422. After France’s Kings moved to more cultured Renaissance houses Vincennes became a prison for people like Mirabeau, one of the main in the Revolution. Much later, the First World War spy Mata Hari was executed in the moat in 1917.

10. Bois de Vincennes

The château’s hunting ground is now the largest green space in Paris, covering almost 1,000 hectares and constituting a tenth of the city’s total area.

The Parc Floral de Paris within is a botanical garden landscaped in the 60s and boasting a bonsai greenhouse, water mirror and the central Vallée des Fleurs, which is updated with a new theme every year.

These are also complemented by a miniature railway, outdoor music venue, and mini-golf course.

But the Park Floral is just one small corner of the Bois de Vincennes, which also holds the Paris Zoological Park, the Hippodrome running horse races, the Velodrome and the Art Deco Palais de la Porte Dorée containing the Museum of Immigration and a tropical aquarium in its basement.

More ideals for you: Top 10 things to do in Niort

From : https://wikitopx.com/travel/top-10-things-to-do-in-noisy-le-grand-709323.html

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comrade-ines · 6 years ago

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via MyHouseIdea

#IFTTT #MyHouseIdea

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architectnews · 4 years ago

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Antoine de Ruffi School Group, Marseille

Antoine de Ruffi School Group, Marseille Learning Center, French Architecture, Building Development Images

Antoine de Ruffi School Group in Marseille

7 Apr 2021

Antoine de Ruffi School Group

Design: TAUTEM Architecture and BMC2 Architectes

Location: Marseille, France

In Marseille, at the entrance to the new and rapidly developing Euroméditerranée district, the firms of TAUTEM Architecture and BMC2 Architectes deliver the Antoine de Ruffi School Group.

Housing 22 classroom and common areas, this mineral monolith features strict geometry and spectacular volumes.

Its light-colored concrete façades are sculpted, and the openwork of this thickness forms a colonnade on the port side and a grand staircase on the city side, creating the interplay of light and shadow in its embrasures. In contrast to the building’s envelope, the interiors are warm and comfortable thanks to the use of color and wood.

A remarkable site The Antoine de Ruffi school group occupies a strategic spot between the entrance to the new Méditerranée district, and its “inhabited park” coordinated by the urbanist Yves Lion. Its situation offers, on one hand, a view over the developing suburban fabric, with scattered warehouses, silos, soap factories, large-scale housing estates from the 1970s, and in the distance, the Massif de l’Etoile. The reverse view, towards the west, one sees the port and its huge ships, the towers by Zaha Hadid and Jean Nouvel, as well as the continuous sweep of the highway viaduct.

Sculpted monolith At first glance, this monolith combines massiveness and minerality. The monumentality is the condition guaranteeing its existence in this dense district where high rise apartment buildings (up to 17 stories) are slated for construction. The architects have voluntarily limited the number of architectural and technical components to guarantee simplicity and longevity and to ensure easy maintenance.

Built with “low carbon,” light-colored concrete, between the pearl white blanc and beige of the coquina sand (dear to Pouillon), the building was poured in place and without joints. The painstaking work of the “skin” has produced alternating parts of coquina and smooth, mat and shiny surfaces and an interplay of light and shadow in the embrasures.

Bio-climatic design: façades adapted to their exposure The façades play a protective role. With a thickness of 100 cm, they are the result of a “double wall”, a process of simultaneous pouring of two veils of concrete between which a rigid form of insulation is inserted. They combine thermal performance and massiveness to the two mineral façades. In their thickness, the deep embrasures placed here provide the interior with useful voids for installing storage, work stations and fluid circulations.

Placing ourselves at the height of children The challenge of designing a school for children ages 3 to 11 is to ensure that they love to go to school and that they find the learning environment both as welcoming and protective as one expects of such an institution. The ergonomics, the comfort and the attention of taking into account the height of children guided the overall design work all the way down to the slightest details.

Joyful and luminous interiors To create surprise and contrast with the minerality of the envelope and always in this Mediterranean style, the interior feels joyful and colorful. The softness of curves and the use of wood enabled this children’s universe, warm and enveloping.

This wood, bio-sourced larch from the Alpes, was used with restraint, for the major walls covered in wood paneling and glazed between the class rooms and circulations and for built in furnishings.

Antoine de Ruffi School Group in Marseille, France – Building Information

Design: TAUTEM Architecture and BMC2 Architectes

Program: School group of 22 classes and common areas Client: Euroméditerranée Owner: Ville de Marseille Engineering firms: TAUTEM Architecture (lead architect), bmc2 (associate architect) BEST Portefaix (Structure) ; Elithis (M&E Engineer) ; Even Conseil (Environmental consultants) ; Gui Jourdan (Acoustics) ; Seri (External Works) ; Ekos (soil decontamination) ; Alpha i Eco (Scheduling, Piloting & Coordinating) ; Dicobat (Economist)

Address: Marseille, France Environmental approach: Mediterranean Sustainable Building, level Silver Pilot BIM Project: Pilot project for the new regulation E+C-, level achieved: E3C1 Net floor area: 4,150 sqm (44,670 sqft) Cost: €10,500,000 excl. VAT

Calendar: Competition 2017 Delivered in January 2021

Antoine de Ruffi School Group, Marseille images / information received 070421

Location: Marseilles, France, southern Europe

Marseille Architecture

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MaisonA in Aix-en-Provence, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, southern France Design: Pietri Architectes photograph : Mathieu Ducros MaisonA in Aix-en-Provence

La Barquière Residential Development Design: Pietri Architectes photo © Mathieu Ducros La Barquière Housing Project in Marseille

Vitrolles Media Library, avenue des Salyen, 13127 Vitrolles, Bouches-du-Rhône, Southern France Architect: Jean-Pierre Lott photo : Aldo Amoretti Vitrolles Media Library in France

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Vieux Port Pavilion Design: Foster + Partners photo : Nigel Young Vieux Port Pavilion Marseille Building

The Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations Design: Rudy Ricciotti photo : Gabrielle Voinot MUCEM Museum Marseille

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French Architecture News, Buildings in France

French Architecture News 2021, France Building Projects, New Construction Design, Property

French Architecture News

Contemporary Buildings in France Information – Built Environment Updates & Images

post updated 16 February 2021

French Building News

French Architectural News + Key New Property Designs, alphabetical:

French Architecture Design – chronological list

15 Feb 2021 Johnny Depp’s French Village

15 Feb 2021 l’Aldilonda Promenade, Bastia

20 Jan 2021 Breitenbach Landscape Hotel Alsace Resort

2 Nov 2020 Contemporary Duplex Cannes

29 Oct 2020 100% wooden house, Château de la Bourdaisière, Montlouis-sur-Loire Design: LOCAL and Suphasidh Studio photo : Atelier Vincent Hecht 100% wooden house Montlouis-sur-Loire LOCAL and Suphasidh Studio build a prototype of a 100% wooden house in the park of the Bourdaisière Castle. The project questions the flexibility and the usage of wood; it aims to modify the traditional codes of the individual housing.

27 Oct 2020 Théâtre “Legendre” in Evreux Design: OPUS 5 architectes photo : Luc Boegly Théâtre Legendre Evreux The highly respectful project aimed to restore this theater dating from 1903 to its former glory, in its original architectural style and including the design of a new décor for the lobby.

16 Oct 2020 I Park Housing, Montpellier

30 Sep 2020 MEETT Exhibition and Convention Centre, Toulouse, southern France Design: OMA photograph : Marco Cappelletti, Courtesy of OMA MEETT Exhibition and Convention Centre MEETT, Toulouse’s new Exhibition and Convention Centre designed by OMA / Chris van Duijn, has been completed, becoming the third largest parc des expositions in France outside of Paris.The 155,000 sqm project incorporates exhibition halls, a convention centre, a multi-function event hall, a car park silo for 3,000 cars and a transportation hub with a new tram station.

28 Sep 2020 Les Belles Echappées, Chamonix-Mont-Blanc

16 Aug 2020 Wicker Pavilion, Jardins de l’Europe Design: DJA – Didzis Jaunzems, Ksenia Sapega photo : Eriks Bozis Wicker Pavilion Annecy The pavilion blends in with the surrounding landscape and forms a shaded space for park visitors to shelter from the hot summer sun.

2 Aug 2020 House H2 on Corsica

27 July 2020 Footbridge at the Angers Saint-Laud Train Station

18 July 2020 Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul Cathedral Fire

A fire at the cathedral in the French city of Nantes is believed to have been started deliberately, prosecutors say.

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Three fires were started at the west end of the building. An investigation into suspected arson is under way, French prosecutors state.

photo by Florestan – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://ift.tt/2NbjhB5

The blaze destroyed stained glass windows and the grand organ at the Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul cathedral, which dates from the 15th Century.

It follows the devastating fire at Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris in 2019.

But the local fire chief said the fire in Nantes had been contained and was “not a Notre-Dame scenario”.

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The damage is concentrated on the organ, which appears to be completely destroyed. The platform it is situated on is very unstable and risks collapsing.

The cathedral roof had not been touched by the blaze.

The fire seems to have started around 07:30 local time.

Construction of the Gothic church building began in 1434, but did not reach completion until 1891.

25 June 2020 Sean Connery South-of-France Villa, Nice

19 June 2020 Cannes Temporary Cinema Competition

1 June 2020 MON House and Brick Extension Montpellier

12 Apr 2020 Refuge du Goûter – French Alps Building

post updated 11 Apr 2020 ; 24 Oct 2019 Belaroia Hotel and Apartments, Rue Jules Ferry, Montpellier, southern France Design: Manuelle Gautrand Architecture photo © Luc Boegly Belaroia Hotel and Apartments in Montpellier Belaroia Hotel and Apartments is an important project for the City of Montpellier and its development agency, the SERM, as it holds a strategic position between the city’s hyper-centre, characterised by its escutcheon form in plan, and new surrounding districts that have appeared in succession.

20 Mar 2020 Architectural Adventures in The French Alps

17 Mar 2020 The Wet Docks Offices in Bordeaux

10 Mar 2020 Garden Tennis Club of Cabourg in Normandy

10 Mar 2020 Chemin des Carrières, Alsace Building

5 Mar 2020 LUX* La Baraquette, Marseillan, Hérault department, southern France Architecture: Slow Life Architects image courtesy of architecture practice LUX* La Baraquette Construction at this picturesque new waterfront resort in the charming port town of Marseillan by luxury developer Propriétés & Co, is progressing well, with the first phase of residences taking shape.

2 Jan 2020 Dortoir Familial Ramatuelle Property, Var department, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, southeastern France Design: NADAAA, Architects image courtesy of architects office Dortoir Familial Ramatuelle House, Var Property For centuries, the enclosed courtyard has been overlaid on various geographic settings—each time transformed according to the climate, rituals, and construction practices of the place. A vehicle to capture the outdoors within the building, the courtyard is defined by its interiority.

2 Jan 2020 House H2 on Corsica, Luxury Property

French Architect French Architect – France architecture office listings

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French Architecture News 2019

13 Nov 2019 Portes Bonheur, le Chemin des Carrières in Rosheim (Rosheim-St Nabor railway), Alsace, North East France Design: Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter AS, Norway photography : Florent Michel 11h45 Portes Bonheur, le Chemin des Carrières in Rosheim The “Portes Bonheur” greenway is an original creation for the Communauté de Communes des Portes de Rosheim.

28 Sep 2019 Le Dôme Winery, Saint-Émillion, Bordeaux, south west France Architects: Foster + Partners image courtesy architecture office Le Dôme Winery in Saint-Émillion, Bordeaux Nestled in the rolling hills of Bordeaux, the design of the new building aims to blend seamlessly with the UNESCO World Heritage Cultural Landscape of the region with a state-of-the-art facility for the young label.

20 Sep 2019 Footbridge over high-speed train station in Laval, Mayenne department, western France Design: Dietmar Feichtinger Architectes photograph : David Boureau Train Station Footbridge in Laval, Mayenne With the opening of the new high-speed rail and its various urban planning functions, the ZAC “Laval à Grande Vitesse” from the station area, is making an economic pole of the city and its metropolitan area.

27 Aug 2019 Metropole’s Crematorium in Rennes

8 Aug 2019 Maison Louis Carré France: Alvar Aalto House

10 July 2019 Rennes Competition for a New Residential Tower Design: Team JDSA with local architects Maurer & Gilbert and Paris offices SMAC and Think Tank Rennes Residential Tower Competition

More contemporary French Architecture News online soon

French Architecture News 2018

25 Oct 2018 Les Cabanes du Lac, Aix-les-Bains, department of Savoie, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, southeastern France Design: Pietri Architectes photography : Kevin Dolmaire Les Cabanes du Lac in Aix-les-Bains This programme, featuring 58 apartments and 2 shops, forms part of the development of the ZAC des Bords du Lac, Quartier Nouvel Aix, an exceptional, 15-hectare site connecting the historic heart of Aix-les-Bains with Lac du Bourget.

14 Sep 2018 Headquarters of Métropole Rouen Normandie

30 Jun 2018 Aqualagon Waterpark Shortlisted at World Architecture Festival 2018 Awards Aqualagon Waterpark, Marne la Vallée, France, is one of 536 shortlisted entries across 81 countries: World Architecture Festival Awards 2018 Shortlist

17 Jun 2018 Water Park Aqualagon, Villages Nature Paris, Marne-la-Vallée, France Design: Jacques Ferrier Architecture photo © Jacques Ferrier Architecture ; photographs by Didier Boy De La Tour Water Park Aqualagon The direction of the winds and the path of the sun have determined the floor plan for our project. Protected from cold north-easterly winter winds, nestling up to the forest, the aquatic park opens towards the west to make the most of cool breezes in warm weather.

10 May 2018 Grand Musée d’Art Nantes Wins RIBA Award for International Excellence 2018 Design: Stanton Williams Architects photo © Nick Hufton Grand Musee d Art Nantes The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced the winners of the RIBA Awards for International Excellence and the 2018 RIBA International Emerging Architect, including this elegant and beautifully proportioned alteration and major extension for Nante’s Musee d’Arts.

27 Apr 2018 Sir John Monash Centre, Villers-Bretonneux, Somme department, Hauts-de-France, northern France Design: Cox Architecture with Williams, Abrahams, Lampros photo © Tim D Williams Sir John Monash Centre in Villers-Bretonneux To the east of the 1938 Edwin Lutyens-designed memorial to the Australians who fell in the nearby fields during World War I, a new feature has been added.

17 Apr 2018 Breitenbach Landscape Hotel, Breitenbach, Bas-Rhin department, Alsace, north-eastern France Design: Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter images : Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter, WSBY, Tejo Breitenbach Landscape Hotel France Breitenbach Landscape Hotel will have a prominent role linking the hotel activity to the site and local traditions. At the same time, it will gather the best of architecture, design, spa facilities and food culture in the region.

26 Mar 2018 Glass House, Cap d’Antibes, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, southeastern France Architects: David Price Design photo :Hervé Hôte Glass House on the French Riviera British designer David Price, who works out of offices in Provence and on the Côte d’Azur, together with his Anglo-French-American team, has completed a show-stopping ‘Glass House’ for a British client on the Cap d’Antibes.

15 Mar 2018 Technical Center of Blagnac, Gignac, Hérault département, Occitanie region, southern France Design: NBJ architectes photo : photoarchitecture.com/PaulKozlowski Technical Center of Blagnac France Located next to an expressway, the Technical Center of Blagnac was built in the middle of a neighborhood characterized by a highly industrialized program. Nevertheless, a classified forest and a cemetery are located just next to the site. These elements constitute the principal specificity of this program.

5 Mar 2018 9-9 bis Transformation of a Former Mine Site Into a Cultural Complex Design: Hérault Arnod architectures photo : André Morin 9-9 bis Cultural Complex in Oignies The Oignies coal mine closed in 1990, leaving a whole population and its industrial mining heritage in disarray (pithead buildings, industrial buildings, head frames). The project to reinstate this territory marked by decades of mining operations, began in 2005 with the competition mounted by the Hénin-Carvin Intermunicipal Council.

2 Mar 2018 Gymnasium of the Louis de Cormontaigne High School, Metz Architects: agence ENGASSER & associés photo : Mathieu Ducros Gymnasium of the Louis de Cormontaigne High School The new gymnasium is located on the site like a ship’s bow, facing the Louis de Cormontaigne High School building, a three-story structure housing the classrooms between the Moselle River and the canal and facing the motorway, which is the site’s main acoustic challenge.

1 Mar 2018 Tête de Pont Bayonne, south west France Design: Josep Lluis Mateo – Mateo Arquitectura image Courtesy architecture office Bayonne Gateway Three interventions address three independent yet complementary themes: – The Marinadour complex, which represents the organization of a considerable urban density and a mixed programme. – In the Park, the ground is the protagonist. Vegetation, transparency, public space, pedestrian connectivity. – The Rivadour complex closes the urban space. It is a continuous block that follows the river before breaking off towards the city.

20 Feb 2018 Palais de Justice, Lille Design: OMA image courtesy of OMA / ArtefactoryLab Palais de Justice Lille OMA’s design for the new Palais de justice in Lille has been selected as the winner of four finalists from a competition. The new public building, commissioned by the Ministry of Justice, will accommodate the high court and district court of Lille.

13 Feb 2018 Church of Saint-Jacques de la Lande, Rennes, east of Brittany, northwestern France Architects: Alvaro Siza Vieira photo : Joao Morgado Church of Saint-Jacques de la Lande in Rennes This project in Brittany was contracted to the Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza Vieira. His use of light and white concrete provide a unique ceremonial space that gently folds into the neighbourhood south of Rennes, a residential area with five-story housing blocks.

9 Jan 2018 St Tropez Villa, Saint-Tropez, Var department, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, southeastern France Architects: SAOTA photo : Adam Letch Luxury Villa in Southern France The design comprises a series of horizontal planes – the green hedge on street level, the solid street facing front of the house, the indoor layers running from east to west, the linear terrace and sloping green embankment and swimming pool below.

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French Houses: Residential Buildings in France

French Houses, Residential Buildings France, Homes Images, Architecture Project Photos, Designers

French Houses: France Properties

New Residential Buildings in France, Europe – Contemporary Properties

post updated 2 Jan 2021 with new properties & info

New French Houses

Contemporary Residential Architecture in France

2 Aug 2020 House H2, Corsica House H2 on Corsica

25 June 2020 Luxury Villa in Nice Sean Connery South-of-France Villa, Nice

1 Apr 2020 Mayflower Apartment Building in Nantes

New French Houses 2018 – 2019

New French Houses 2015 – 2017

9 May 2017 Quiet House in Gignac

10 Feb 2017 House H2 on Corsica

5 Jan 2017 Dag Cottage in Chamonix-Mont-Blanc

18 Mar 2016 Villa M1 in Hyères les Palmiers

17 Feb 2016 House RT 2012 in Riec-sur-Bélon

6 Jan 2016 Bioclimatic House in the Gulf of Morbihan, Baden, Brittany, North West France Design: Patrice Bideau photograph : Armel Istin Bioclimatic House in the Gulf of Morbihan

More Contemporary French Houses online soon

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