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We'll Always Have Paris
Better a witch's hat than a wizard's sleeve
Would you like a new Paris? The existing one seems perfectly all right. It is the favoured city destination for international tourists, above New York and London. It can claim to be the most visited capital in the world.
But French president Nicolas Sarkozy has a fervent belief that there needs to be a change in the landscape. In a rare outbreak of agreement with Paris's Socialist Mayor Bertrand Delanöe, he has already enrolled Richard Rogers’ firm of British architects, amongst other prestigious non-French consultants, to ponder and perhaps draw up blueprints for a new and improved Paris.
EURSOC wrote in July on Delanöe's plans to remodel the Paris skyline with skyscrapers in selected zones. Earlier this week, the design for one tower was revealed (see photo), a kind of flattened pyramid which has already been nicknamed the "Witch's Hat."
In the 1980s Baron Haussmann revamped the capital at the behest of Napoleon III. He crushed small medieval streets, replacing them with wide impressive boulevards. We take it for granted today that this is how the city centre should look. But at the time it must have caused a few ‘crises cardiaques’
Cities must and do evolve. However, a lot of people don’t like change. There is change for the better and change for the worse. (Never underestimate worse).
Over the centuries and in our time it has been hit and miss in the city of light. The Eiffel Tower barely escaped demolition after its debut at the Universal Exhibition of 1889. (The Hotel de Ville kept trying until 1909 and then gave up).
President Georges Pompidou sanctioned the destruction of the old, landmark ‘Halles' – central food market – in the early 1970s. The last part, the distinctive ‘Pavillons Baltard’ were bulldozed in 1973. Now the site is an odd semi-park, haven for drug dealers, combined with a mediocre underground shopping centre. (There are many nascent plans for re-development).
After much head-scratching, president François Mitterand’s commission for the pyramid in the forecourt of the Louvre has been deemed a success.
In the film ‘Casablanca’ (1942) Humphrey Bogart says to Ingrid Bergman, “We’ll always have Paris”.
Let’s cross fingers.
