VINGT Paris News

Pop Your Xmas - on the Champs with Castelbajac

Text by Philippa Brangam image Coolhunter

Understated is certainly not a word you could ever use when talking about fashion designer Jean Charles de Castelbajac. This holiday season he is putting the pop into xmas with an installation at Publicis drugstore. From November 20th Publicis will be covered with jewel colored glass panels creating a stain glass window effect.

This Thursday, 26th November Publicis is hosting a special event to celebrate the installation Pop Your Xmas. With music from DJ Greg Boust, JC will be Present when the lights are switched on at 7pm and a book signing in-shop will follow. He has also designed a series of exclusive gifts available on the ground floor of the store.  A great chance to meet the charismatic designer and get a head start on Christmas shopping.

Pershing Hall Hotel

Text by Eva Krysiak

Pershing Hall Hotel provides a striking blend of sensory titillation. Dramatic green, red and pink lighting cloaks the walls and the smell of fresh mint and limes wafts from the cocktails. A vertical, botanical wall provides the centerpiece of the downstairs lounge - at 30 metres high and spanning two floors, it provides a dramatic setting. 

Maison des Métallos

Anna Bromwich writing for VINGT paris, photo courtesy of G@ttoGiallo

Maison des Métallos is perhaps best described as a cultural venue with a social conscience. It’s various spaces stage exhibitions, theatre and concerts with strong political themes and host creative workshops for young and old alike. The Maison also holds public debates, philosophy lectures and collaborative events with local associations. It also supports creative and research projects which establish links with the local community.

This Brechtian mixture of the cultural used for social purpose befits a building which started life during the industrial revolution as the first factory to manufacture brass musical instruments. In 1936 it became the headquarters of the steelworkers union, thus inaugurating its current name. Until 1997, when the Mairie de Paris bought it, Maison des Métallos ran syndicate meetings, trade workshops for the disabled and unemployed and a clinic in much the same community spirit as it's contemporary incarnation.

Cité de la Mode et du Design

Anna Bromwich writing for VINGT Paris

Cité de la mode et du Design,image by Ollografik

Perched on Quai D’Austerlitz on the old industrial banks of the Seine is a 21st century Emerald City. The Cité de la Mode et du Design is a converted storehouse wrapped in a vibrant green, wavy skin that was designed to echo the murky Seine running beside it.

Cité de la Mode is due to open in early 2010 and the public should soon be able to visit the complex of boutiques, restaurants and exhibition spaces all pertaining to the theme of fashion and design.  The building already plays host to the post-graduate fashion design and management school l’Institut de la Mode. However, it is the Cité's adventurous architecture which is the greatest testament to its proposed use. Twenty years ago this part of town was a run down industrial zone. Stretching from Gare d'Austerlitz to Boulevard Général Jean-Simon, a visit to this corner of the 13th arrondissement was easily bypassed unless you happened to be tugging a boatload of merchandise up the Seine.

New architecture in the Marais

Susie Hollands writing for VINGT Paris

The building on the corner of rue de Turenne and the rue Saint-Antoine was one of the last in the 4th arrondissiment to be classed as "insalubrious". It was sticking out like a sore thumb and in prime real estate territory (10,000 - 11,000euros per m²). So, the Mairie de Paris took the opportunity to reinforce it's committment to preserving Paris' mixité sociale (perhaps it's too late Bertrand). 

Over two years the young architects with a small budget (2.1 million euros), Karine Chartier and Thomas Corbasson have pulled off a winner - 11 Logement sociaux (social housing apartments) ranging from studios to three bedrooms span the 5 storey, 900m² space.  Each apartment benefits from a terrace and the new inhabitants were hanging out on the balcony looking pretty perky when I passed the other day.

20 Contemporary Constructions

1. Cinématèque Française (Frank Gehry)
2. Centre George Pompidou (Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers)
3. Parc de la Villette (Bernard Tschumi)
4. Maison de Verre (Pierre Chareau)
5. Cité de la Musique (Christian de Portzamparc)
6. Stade de France (Michel Macary, Aymeric Zubléna, Michel Regembal et Claude Constantini)
7. La Tour Montparnasse (Roger Saubot, Eugène Beaudouin, Urbain Cassan et Louis Hoym de Marien)
8. La Grande Arche (Johann Otto von Spreckelsen)
9. La Géode (Adrien Fainsilber, Gérard Chamayou)
10. Pyramides du Louvre (Ieoh Ming Pei)
11. L'Opéra Bastille (Carlos Ott)
12. Musée Quai Branly (Jean Nouvel)
13. Bibliothèque Francois Mitterand (Dominique Perrault)
14. La Grande Halle de la Villette (Jules de Mérindol)
15. La Fondation Cartier (Jean Nouvel)
16. Académie Fratellini (Patrick Bouchain)
17. Maison La Roche (Le Corbusier)
18. Théâtre des Champs-Elysées (Henry Van de Velde)
19. Cité de la mode et du design "Docks en Seine" (Dominique Jakob et Brendan Mac Farlane)
20. Maison de Radio France (Henry Bernard)

Photo: Elisabeth Karolyi

Byzance Home

Adrian K. Sanders writing for I V Y paris

Paris doesn't have the young fervor of Berlin, nor the cut-throat pace of London and New York but it does have a very distinct appreciation for art that is proving to have real staying power in spite of the current market Armageddon.

Parisians love beautiful things. The tradition of decorative arts seen in Rococo, Art Nouveau and Modernist architecture and the fierce pride of fashion and design boutiques throughout the city are testaments to all things lovely.

Art as a decorative object doesn't carry as much of the stigma here in Paris as in other cities. The pure aesthetic enjoyment of an art piece holds an important place in the mind's eye of the Paris citizen.

Collectible value, artistic integrity and practical function appeal to a conservative and relatively small market that still has strong purchase power and we may see more conversion happening between design and contemporary art if this trend develops.

The possibility of stepping away from the great white wall and onto the stage of a home or office is an exciting frontier, not just for decorative art, but for everything else as well.A boutique store like Byzance Home offers a compelling example of the collision between art and design that makes the case for decorative art, and perhaps other forms as well.

Andrea Blum at Maison Rouge

Now through October 5th, 2008
At a crossing between art, design, and architecture, Andrea Blum's installation Birdhouse becomes a place where visitors can drink and dine. This caged pavilion is perched inside an aviary, located in the heart of the gallery's exhibition space.

Small tropical birds flutter about, while you sip your coffee and admire Elmar Trenkwalder's ceramic sculptures from afar. An amusing experience.

Small Cinema Session on Mai '68 at the Pavillon Arsenal

Photo: Godard and Coutard shooting "Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle", 1966 © DR

On the first Thursday of each month, the Pavillon de l'Arsenal and the Forum des images invite you to their Small Cinema Sessions, screenings of short films and documentaries involving Paris and its surroundings.

This month's edition will serve as an opportunity to remember the events of May '68 along with the Parisian landscape and architectural projects of the time.

Excerpts of news reels, documentaries and dramatic films will include Edouard Luntz's "Lescoeurs verts”  (1996), Jacques Tati's “Playtime” (1967), and Jean Luc Godard's “Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle” (1967).

A discussion on the major changes between May '68 and May '08 will also take place, hosted by by François CHASLIN, architect and architecture critic, and Jean-Yves DE LEPINAY, director of programmes at the Forum Des Images.

Richard Rogers + Architects at Beaubourg

Now thru March 3rd, 2008

An occasion to catch up on your architecture homework, this exhibition presents a body of work produced by Richard Rogers and his associates: from the first projects completed with Norman and Wendy Foster and Sue Rogers (as part of the Team 4 practice in the 1960s) to current projects with Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners' firm. This retrospective is also an occasion to retrace the design of the Centre Pompidou in the 1970s.