The Parisian suburbs are known for their grands ensembles, massive suburban apartment complexes built in the 1950s and 1960s. Square, monofunctional and surrounded by open spaces, they are the materialization of the reigning Modernist ideology of the time and are the first view foreign visitors get from Paris as they arrive from Roissy Charles De Gaulle or Orly Airport, as in the view of Sarcelles below.
In 1900, the Brooklyn Museum‘s first curator William Henry Goodyear traveled to the Paris Exposition — a celebration of the past century’s achievements, highlighting cutting edge art, science, and technology. Fifty million visitors witnessed the first full-screen projections of several films (with sound), experienced the first moving walkway, saw the emergence of a style that would become known as art nouveau, and much more.
Goodyear brought photographer/colorist Joseph Hawkes with him for the six-week trip, in order to capture a slice of Parisian life and scenes from the World’s Fair for people in the States. Traveling to Europe wasn’t unheard of at the time, but many folks still couldn’t make the trip. Once they returned, Goodyear conducted a series of lectures, where he showcased a collection of colored lantern slides that brought the normally grainy, black and white images to life. At that time there was no color photography or film, so the tinted highlights added an exciting dimension to the images.
The effect is largely the same for viewers today, as you’ll see in our gallery past the break. The colorization creates a beautiful bejeweled, watercolor-type fluidity, making something like a normal street scene appear absolutely dreamy.
“I put off the actual kill until the last moment,” says Marc Manceaux, who isn’t an assassin but the owner of the oldest piano-parts shop in Paris, recounting the twinge of regret he feels when he has to disassemble an intact instrument. In Tom Wrigglesworth and Mathieu Cuvelier’s captivating five-minute film, we meet this philosophical artisan and tour his shop, Fournitures Generales Pour Le Piano, which is packed from floor to ceiling with pianos in various stages of deconstruction. He can’t see his declining business lasting for more than another decade, but his mind is already occupied with a higher pursuit: the quest to create “a sound that doesn’t exist,” an instrument that combines the sounds of the piano, the lute, and the harp but with “the purity of one single string.” Get your daily dose of inspiration after the jump.
French street artists Leo & Pipo certainly class up the joint. Most of their art revolves around paste-ups, the pair sneaking vintage black and white photos of finely dressed ladies and gentlemen into the streets of Paris, invoking a kind of nostalgia and bygone glamour. What we like even more, however, are the pair’s collages, which we’ve noticed more than once over on designer John Gall’s tumblr, Flim-Flam. Like any self-respecting street artists, Leo & Pipo are always masked in photographs or representations, and in these works, the two men seem to be re-making their own self-portraits over and over again, hiding the faces of others as if they were their own. Click through to see a few of our favorite collages by Leo & Pipo, and check out their flickr page to see their street art and even more. You can also buy their t-shirts here. Read More »
Artist Janol Apin’s 1990′s photo series takes viewers for a literal-minded ride through Paris’ transportation system. Using the names of the Métro’s real stops, he snapped quirky images of people who represent each destination’s name. There are 300 stations along the 16-line network, but only the ones that bear names like “Alexandre Dumas” and “Rome” get Apin’s clever touch. Hop on board past the break.
Imagine Paris subdued and submerged, the city reflected on itself in the wake of a natural disaster. This beautiful and unsettling short film, which we spotted over at Design You Trust, shows the City of Light — from the Louvre to the Centre Pompidou to the average narrow street corner – flooded and abandoned as the streetlights continue to flash unheeded and café awnings ripple in the breeze. The film, entitled “5:46 am” and created by Olivier Campagne & Vivien Balzi, is deftly done and strangely calming, though the world it imagines is one of a disaster we’d not like to see. Click through to see the short film and a few stills and let us know what you think in the comments.
If you’ve ever wondered what it was like to stroll through the cobblestone streets of Paris in the 1960s, Charles W. Cushman’s collection of vintage photographs will transport you to that era. How to Be a Retronaut unearthed the images, which honor the City of Lights with candid shots whose vivid hues remind us of classic French films like The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Gorgeous buildings and mid-century automobiles fill the pictures, while fashionable passersby don suits and tea-length dresses, oblivious to the lens that was immortalizing them. Step into a time warp as you flip through the photo gallery after the jump.
Where does one live if one is interested in the life of the mind? Do you hole up in a rural area or head to the city, where you can hope to meet like-minded aesthetes at gin-filled parties? If you prefer the latter, then we have a list of cities for your wandering, writerly craft to thrive. We’ve included a few writers famous for living in the cities below, as well as recommended reading for each place. As always, let us know what places or which authors we’ve missed in the comments section below.
All across Paris, the common man is rising up in battle. Or, more specifically, the common bored office worker is spending his time creating intricate Post-it note collages on his office windows, in a city-wide contest between corporate offices known as La guerre des Post-it (the Post-it wars). As My Modern Met pointed out, there’s even a Tumblr dedicated to the war, filled with creative, clever and silly Post-it murals guaranteed to brighten your day. What do you say we bring this trend to the US? We know the Flavorpill office has some big windows that could do with a little decorating… just kidding, Flavorpill bosses, back to work! Click through to see some of the best bombs in the French Post-it wars, and let us know what you think in the comments.
Ross Ching’s newly refurbished ‘Running on Empty’ video, a time-lapse fabrication of an LA with no cars, has gotten a lot of hype in the past few days in conjunction with the whole ’Carmageddon’ fiasco in LA. Even though Carmageddon turned out to be a dud, Ching’s video is a beautiful ode to Los Angeles, worth watching no matter where you live. To our minds, the time-lapse video is something akin to watching a city fly by in a cab — it can feel removed and relaxing, touching and surprising, and is a pretty, easy way to experience something huge. To that end, ‘Running on Empty’ inspired us to gather a collection of other lovely time-lapse-based odes to the world’s most fascinating cities, from Berlin to Seoul to Abu Dhabi to New York. Sit back, relax and immerse yourself in somewhere else.
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