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...