There can be no doubt that we now have fewer days left on sabbatical than not.
It’s my day off today, Sandy has class, but I have some work to finish.
We went back to the beautiful 16th today for an architectural walk. The Art Nouveau architect, Hector Guimard, he of the famous Métro station entrances, worked in and around this area. Art Deco came along afterwards. Even later, Le Corbusier and other modernists built around here. (Unfortunately, although we’ve visited before, Corbusier’s neighbouring Villa Jeanneret and Villa La Roche (and the Fondation Corbusier) were closed for renovations.) In any case, many of the apartment and other residential buildings in the quartier, almost no matter what style, are gorgeous.
Spent a fun evening with our friends Charlotte and Antonis (and, for a while their 3 enfants). They had some trenchant observations about life in Paris, a different perspective from folk who actually live and work here. No doubt beautiful, they say, but lacking in substance and depth underneath as compared, for instance, to London.
We went to an Argentinian place in the 3rd, Anahi, 49, rue Volta, right around the corner from L’Ami Louis, oddly enough, where we’d been the night before.
- Magasin Felix Potin on rue de Rennes.
- The wisteria today.
- Building near our apartment.
- Lovely building in 16th on rue de Ranelagh.
- Radio France building in Cold War 50s-60s style. The French apparently call it “Le Camembert” for obvious reasons. Designed by Henry Bernard.
- Guimard’s Castel Beranger.
- Side of the building. It was called La Maison du Diable because of Gothic devil at the corner of the lookout tower. Note the seahorse motif on the side.
- Another Guimard apartment building, less fanciful.
- Guimard street sign.
- Guimard’s Hotel Mezzara, now a student residence.
- Early Rodin sculpture, “The Bronze Age”.
- Guimard pre-fab house; the idea never caught on, at least then.
- Finally, Guimard’s move towards Art Deco.
- Le Corbuier villas in square du Dr. Blanche.
- Robert Mallet-Stevens-designed house (1925) in rue Mallet-Stevens.
- Another view.
- House at end of Rue Mallet-Stevens but I don’t know the architect.
- Anahi. Doesn’t look like much but excellent food, especially the beef.
- Sandy and Antonis.
- The exuberant Charlotte.