Cool Paris

Anna Bromwich writing for VINGT Paris

Perched on Quai D’Austerlitz on the old industrial banks of the Seine is a 21st century Emerald City. The Cité de la Mode et du Design is a converted storehouse wrapped in a vibrant green, wavy skin that was designed to echo the murky Seine running beside it.

Cité de la Mode is due to open in early 2010 and the public should soon be able to visit the complex of boutiques, restaurants and exhibition spaces all pertaining to the theme of fashion and design.  The building already plays host to the post-graduate fashion design and management school l’Institut de la Mode. However, it is the Cité’s adventurous architecture which is the greatest testament to its proposed use.

Twenty years ago this part of town was a run down industrial zone. Stretching from Gare d’Austerlitz to Boulevard Général Jean-Simon, a visit to this corner of the 13th arrondissement was easily bypassed. Since 1991 the area has been subject to a massive urban redevelopment plan, which has seen the district renamed to ‘Paris Rive Gauche’.  Although the district centralizes the 24 storey Bibliothéque Nationale de France, it appears that architecturally speaking, the jewel in the crown may in fact be the Cité de la Mode et du Design.

Franco-Kiwi duo Dominique Jakob et Brendan MacFarlane, who won the contract in an open competition, took the existing 1907 warehouse structure and overlaid a web-like network of green-painted steel, screen-printed glass and wooden decking which form walkways along the river and lead to a grassy landscaped rooftop.
The architects have nicknamed this concept the ‘Plug-in’: plugging a new structure and concept into the old, thereby manipulating its form and use. The decision to retain the original building, which was not an obligation, has given a contemporary project a sense of history in the midst of recent development, which has changed the landscape dramatically.

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Until the end of the month at Musée des Arts Décoratifs.

In the 30’s, Madeleine Vionnet was one of the greatest fashiondesigner of Paris. Unfortenately she is not wel known. The musée brings a homage to her by exposing 130 models and textile.

Musée des Arts Décoratifs, 70, Rue de Rivoli, 75001 Paris, M° Palais Royal-Musée du Louvre

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As read at the site of Vingt :

In an intimate art gallery Au Bonheur du Jour, directly opposite the site of mythic brothel Le Chabanais presents in explicit detail the history of maisons closes in Paris from 1860 to 1946.

The display of carefully chosen vintage photographs, drawings, documents, paintings and objects of desire is divided into seventeen sections: Places, Women, Scenes with women, Spanking and flagellation, Libertine lingerie , Brothels for men, Guides and adverts, Tokens, Props, Painters and illustrators, Postcards, Songs, Illustrated magazines, Literature, Movies, the Saint-Lazare jail and finally the Closing of brothels.

Although brothels existed unofficially in Paris since the 13th century, it was only when Napoleon ordered their registration and a bi-weekly health inspection of all prostitutes that they started to be legally designated as the maisons closes. Among the most exquisite brothels, which flourished throughout the 19th century, were Le Chabanais, Le One Two Two, Le Sphinx, la Fleur Blanche, L’Etoile de Kléber . Each one of them had a clientele with specific erotic demand, from flagellation to libertine lingerie. When in 1946 when Marthe Richard, a town councilor and a former street prostitute, outlawed the maisons closes, approximately 1400 registered brothels were closed.

To get a glimpse of this sensual universe visit the gallery Au Bonheur du Jour until January 31, 2010.

Au Bonheur du Jour,11 rue Chabanais – 75002 Paris, M° Quatre-Septembre
Tuesday to Saturday, – 2.30pm – 7.30pm

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The famous and beautiful scene….

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