Skip to content

Posts tagged ‘paris’

May 2

3 Comments

Part 2 of Procrastination in the City: Les Halles

The Quartier des Halles, an area near the Louvre, is being completely torn down and rebuilt for the second time in 30 years. For many centuries it housed merchant markets but in the modern era visitors were only attracted by the nearby great museums of the city. Les Halles itself was not very useful or inspiring.

But Paris knew that Les Halles needed not only an “upgrade” but a complete reenvisioning. But it didn’t start off so well, the first plan, completed in 1979 would make most architects cringe. The buildings closed themselves off from the street and existing urban fabric of the neighborhood and the construction was terrible. The buildings quickly fell into disrepair and tourism in that area certainly didn’t blossom.

Read more

Apr 2

Procrastination in the City (part 1)

(Upon completing this entry, my daughter informed me that 900 words was far too long for one blog post. She then informed me she was “unaware that my mother was a woman of so many words.”)

If there’s one thing I love best about the Internet – it’s that there is no off switch. During bouts of insomnia, caused by stress or jetlag or that second Martini during dinner, I can access the whole world. There’s a different aesthetic to the kind of learning I do at 3am. More recently, I’ve become entrenched in the world of digressionary architecture research. I find myself reading blogs on Victorian architecture or tracking new projects in Australia.

Read more

%d bloggers like this: