An Ode to François Mittérand

So... François Mittérand, president of the Fifth Republic of France from 1981 to 1995, first Socialist president of the Fifth Republic, responsible for the bombing of the Greenpeace ship the Rainbow Warrior, initiator of a wealth tax in France, family man, ex-spy, adulterer. Most pertinent to this blog entry, however, is this: he really liked to build stuff. During his term as president, he initiated a series of grands travaux (literally "Big Works" or "Big Constructions") which include the construction of the Chunnel, the business district La Défense (actually outside the city boundaries), IM Pei's pyramid at the Louvre, the Bastille Opera House, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France. This weekend, I visited three of them, kind of by accident, but took pictures and am therefore going to share them with you.

This is the Grande Arche at La Défense. It's meant as sort of an architectural echo to the monuments of the rest of the city -- specifically the Arc de Triomphe and Napoleon's Triumphal Arch in the Tuileries -- and actually lines up with them along the Champs Elysées and the Avenue de la Grande Armée -- you can see the Arc de Triomph from this Arche, but you can't see the third, so I guess you just kind of have to take the French's word for it. Anyway, instead of being pretty and stone, this one is shiny and made of metal, which is a theme for most of the things Mittérand had built (that is, taking pretty stone things and replacing and/or imitating them with ugly metal things.) Anyway, it's funny-lookin', and the rest of La Défense is pretty weird too.





This is what it looks like. You've all seen pictures of Paris (although now that I think on it, I've been pretty negligent about posting my own...), and those pictures, I'm sure, have been pretty accurate -- all those pretty white-gray stone buildings with ironwork railings, lots of leafy avenues and cunning little windy alleyways, etc. etc. Stepping out of the metro at La Défense, however, is like stepping into a different, futuristic world. Or, like, Shanghai. It's totally disconcerting. Anyway, it's apparently the biggest "purpose-built" business district in Europe, and has all sorts of company headquarters, etc., and not a lot of places for people to live, or things for people to do, besides work and maybe eat something for lunch. So far away from the smelly, but definitely lived-in, atmosphere of central Paris.




Seriously. This? So weird.

















This little gem, mes chers amis, is the Bibliothèque (that's "library") nationale de France, AKA the illest-conceived/ugliest architectural endeavor EVER. It, of course, replaced a perfectly nice stone building somewhere in the middle of Paris -- now it's out on the outskirts, in these awful towers, with a serious wind problem. All those little brown door-things had to be installed after it was built to keep too much sunlight from flooding in and damaging the books. It's incredibly hard to get around inside. It's got a garden that NO ONE can get to in the center (the security guard Jake and I talked to said it was "only for the birds"). And, best of all, the towers (there are four in total) create this really intense wind tunnel, so no one can spend any time on this massive expanse of boardwalk in the middle, and the trees in the unusable courtyard have to be CHAINED DOWN so that they don't blow away. Unbelievable. There was, however, a nice photo exhibit inside, and the reading rooms looked pleasant.

This, of course, is the most famous -- and prettiest -- of all the in-Paris building projects -- the pyramids at the Louvre. Although they generated a certain amount of controvery when they were constructed, at least they don't actively damage the art and lively up the courtyard some. Plus, I think they look cool. Good job on this one, François. And Mr. Pei, too, I suppose. I took this today after going to see the Rembrandt drawings exhibit, which was really great (although I had to fork over actual money to go see it, which I did extremely reluctantly), to conclude a lovely afternoon with my friend Kate from Haverford, who's teaching in France, near Strasbourg, for the year. We also went to the museum at the Institut du Monde Arabe, but Mr. Mitterand didn't build that one, so it didn't make the cut.




And as we close this blog entry, a photo of the pyramid, lovely, at night (actually like 6, but so dark out!).