For years, the urban agenda in Paris revolved around the preservation of the historical core, the expansion of the metropolis on its rural fringes, and the development of selected locations such as La Défense. But now the focus has shifted toward a more comprehensive development of the existing city, especially in the area outside the historical core, with a view to densifying the entire metropolitan footprint.
Tag: Paris
Skyscrapers Are Not What’s Going To Save The City
Ed Glaeser’s book Triumph of the City has launched a highly salutary discussion of the virtues of cities. But while it is full of excellent points, Triumph of the City goes off track in its prescriptions by giving the idea that the answer to the density issue is to build skyscrapers. In making that unwarranted leap, Glaeser has risked undermining the impact of his book as a whole. This is a pity, as the core message of Triumph of the City is one that needs to be well understood.
Continue reading Skyscrapers Are Not What’s Going To Save The City
The Struggle for a Bigger Paris
In many cities, growth has led to a situation where the metropolitan area is considerably bigger than the city proper. Paris, where the city limits remain frozen as they were in 1860, is an extreme case of this phenomenon.
Today only 21% of dwellers of the Parisian “urban unit” live in the municipality of Paris, which covers a scant 4% of the metropolitan territory. This situation hampers policy development and implementation for the metropolis and is increasingly seen as an unnecessary handicap for Paris in the global competition among cities.
The question, in this election year, is whether Paris will be able to achieve its first expansion in more than 150 years, whether it will finally be able to give itself a government at the scale of the metropolis.
Seine Rive Gauche
Seine Rive Gauche is beginning to come to life. Covering 320 acres (130 hectares), it is, according to its developer, the largest development project in Paris since Haussmann’s time.
The New Bercy Neighborhood
The Bercy neighborhood is frequently used an example of successful contemporary urban planning. One of its successes it to have created a real neighborhood out of nothing on an initially unpromising site. But the other, perhaps more distinctive characteristic of this operation is to have created an urban form which is highly ordered yet diverse, modern yet still recognizably in the tradition of Parisian urban design. It was worth telling the story of this exemplary urban project.
Paris, Paris by David Downie
Paris, Paris, was first published in 2005. Its reissue this year is a perfect opportunity for those who have any level of knowledge or interest in Paris to read this splendid book.
Le Grand Paris – Part 2: The International Consultation
[Note: this is part 2 of a series. If you have not yet read it, you might want to start with Part 1: The Launch]
After ten months of work, the output of the international consultation on Le Grand Paris was presented to President Sarkozy on March 13th, 2009. Continue reading Le Grand Paris – Part 2: The International Consultation
Le Grand Paris – Part 1: The Launch
Anyone could be forgiven for being confused about what is going on with Le Grand Paris, Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidential ambition to reinvent Greater Paris for the future. This week, Sarkozy gave a speech at the Cité de l’Architecture marking four years since his initial speech, in the same venue, announcing Le Grand Paris. A perfect opportunity for a summary of where we stand. Continue reading Le Grand Paris – Part 1: The Launch
Paris in the 80s
Until October 2nd, 2011, the Pavillon de l’Arsenal is presenting Architecture 80, a “metropolitan chronicle” of architectural events in the 1980s.
Metronome by Lorànt Deutsch
Last year there was a run-away success in French publishing that didn’t fit into any of the usual categories. It was a history book organized around the Paris metro system called Metronome. The most improbable part was its author.
