Wednesday Fin.

 



the rest of the walk was fun, paled in comparison however. started right by my hostel from the first day, apparently the area was quite a bit more seedy then i had realized... the walk was focused on the Canal d'ouroc (although the path wound really far away and back to it a few times) and then ended at the Parc de La Villette. Saw a few exciting Renzo Piano buildings and some fantastic converted warehouses - the neighborhood again was a little more one of immigrants and many housing projects. Not the burning ones, just highrises in town taking over a formerly industrial neighborhood. charming Russian Orthodox church on it's own little hill, oddly placed behind other buildings, access through a gate - completely different world with plants and a little plaza and near-silence. Felt like a piece of the steppe. no access to the chapel, but by peeking in a crack we saw a fresco painter at work.

was a LOT of walking, was very tired by the time we got to the park - a greek sandwich revived me much however. the Parc didn't impress me as much as it maybe should have - the large red follies didn't seem playful enough, but so it goes. the lack of crowds probably had something to do with it - felt like an abandoned six flags with the attractions reduced in scale. impression gradually changed as we walked though it - maybe it's something to visit in the spring. the sunset was gorgeous...

(this is tony's picture, my camera was being finicky with the cold... i pointed out the sunset, although the particular cloud that would have made this picture even better was missing...)

posting this on thursday (i'm finally caught up!), this morning i bought hotel-train tickets to barcelona for tomorrow until sunday :) tonight i'm going to try to get out of studio at 5 or 6 to see the Musee d'Orsay: it's open late on thursdays and is supposed to be full of Impressionist/turn of the century paintings... excited :) 

Wednesday Communist II

 


Emboldened by playing trotsky in front of the revolution, we wandered the rest of the floor. In a sublimely deep/shallow conversation it was noted "It would be great to see those shapes on the roof..." "Well there's the stairs...." hehe so Tony and I snuck up to the roof of the Communist Headquarters. The stairs ended on the top (7th) floor... but there was a convenient sign pointing to the terrace... universal word there. tiny cool cement winding staircase brought us up to a fantastic view of Paris and sculptural-abstract concrete um...forms. quite giddy to be up there, no real cameras on us. Spent quite a bit of time looking around and climbing up and around the mountains, snuck down completely intact and with no one the wiser.... 

Wednesday - Communists!

 


class at 10, more interesting urban exploration lecture, sent out into the recently updated 19th arrondisement.

first (and most excitingly) we walked to the Communist Party Headquarters by Oscar Niemeyer (Brasilia architect). we were told to not expect to get inside, but when we got there it was completely open. scary-dramatic entrance, ground raises up almost to the underside of the office block but then the stairs take you down a story and in being compressed by a big canopy (that visually hangs only a few feet above ground level). Spaceship-smooth glass sliding doors into a put-put green carpeted underground area, indirect lighting along the walls and some natural from the plaza above, sculptural board-formed concrete... tres cool. No evident party demarcations, we very easily could have been in a generic office.

Photomontage wall, and non-english speaking people at the desk. tony's french managed to get across that we just wanted to look around, and they were ok with that. they opened up the dome-meeting room for us - more spaceship doors, into an even more spaceship-like space. It was truely a dome, and explained the odd white plaster hill outside - it was the top of this room. the walls had a continuous covering of hanging aluminum strips to diffuse light and for acoustic purposes that lent a shimery-futuristic feel to the space along with the rounded portal-doors and ?one-way mirrors? on the other side. I had to feel a part of the communist action, so pic is of me in the party line... hard to tell the scale, there was probably 150 fixed seats at tables in low-slope ampitheater style around the front.

I might have to open a photo-sharing site to put more pictures up - getting too close to the 1000 words a few pictures could have replaced...