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Sun Jan 15 - Cite de Refuge
oo time for a big first in my life - my first Corbusier building!!!! (if you get this, you do, if not - he is one of the most influential architects in existance - next to mies of course ha - and highly revered and taught and praised. seeing his stuff is a big deal) i knew the Cite de Refuge (salvation army building) was a little run down, and that was all i could think of at first - what a dump. we were allowed inside just a bit, everything concrete, neat entry sequence though. couldn't see the rooms, it's a homeless/transition shelter, so understandably they were private. spent some time sketching the exterior, and the building really really grew on me. very ship-like, with the entry functions completely separated from the housing blocks. the penthouses had unexpected undulating curves that really added grace to the building, and the little block in front was interesting from all directions, kind of a three-dimensional Mondrian. the cite was not very far from the bibleotheque, so tony and i decided to walk to a more distant metro stop to experience more of this off-the-end of the world suburb (actually not a suburb, we found out later, but it felt like it in comparison to the downtown we're staying in). was pretty boring, a few cool buildings we found later in a "modern architecture in paris" book, but a nice walk on a sunny day. had a meal in the crappiest restaurant to date: moldy ketchup (apparently something they keep around only for foreigners, i'll stick with mayonaise after this), a hole in the floor men's bathroom, and greasy sandwich.
oo time for a big first in my life - my first Corbusier building!!!! (if you get this, you do, if not - he is one of the most influential architects in existance - next to mies of course ha - and highly revered and taught and praised. seeing his stuff is a big deal) i knew the Cite de Refuge (salvation army building) was a little run down, and that was all i could think of at first - what a dump. we were allowed inside just a bit, everything concrete, neat entry sequence though. couldn't see the rooms, it's a homeless/transition shelter, so understandably they were private. spent some time sketching the exterior, and the building really really grew on me. very ship-like, with the entry functions completely separated from the housing blocks. the penthouses had unexpected undulating curves that really added grace to the building, and the little block in front was interesting from all directions, kind of a three-dimensional Mondrian. the cite was not very far from the bibleotheque, so tony and i decided to walk to a more distant metro stop to experience more of this off-the-end of the world suburb (actually not a suburb, we found out later, but it felt like it in comparison to the downtown we're staying in). was pretty boring, a few cool buildings we found later in a "modern architecture in paris" book, but a nice walk on a sunny day. had a meal in the crappiest restaurant to date: moldy ketchup (apparently something they keep around only for foreigners, i'll stick with mayonaise after this), a hole in the floor men's bathroom, and greasy sandwich. 
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