Yesterday I was late again. My meeting was at 7.00 pm in 78, Rue Faubourg Saint Denis, Paris I didn't made until 7.45, but you know... I am italian and sometimes this helps.
In reality I had a good excuse, because, after having been around the streets of Marais and spending some time in few second hand stores with interesting deals, I found myself walking all along the Rue Saint Denis and I was distracted by the multiple cinematic and literary references of this part of the city which, close to the big food market of Les Halles, was up to the late '60s of the past Century, the commercial soul of Paris.
An old fake-blond prostitute trapped me in the time-space machine. I am sure she was already there when the beautiful market was closed to build an ugly shopping mall on the top of one of the biggest metro stations of the world. Irma La Douce was surely her luckier Holliwoodian colleague, but many of her old colleagues are still accompanying her on the same street, Central Business District of the Paris Prostitution since centuries.At the time the clients where genuine workers coming to deliver meat, fish and fresh vegetables from everywhere in France. They passed by Irma's colleaugues after long nights of intense workload. Now the place lost most of its fascination, it's a quite depressing segment of the street with shabby porno-video shops and ugly clothes retailers. Nevertheless, there are some signs of changes. trendy shops are popping up, waiting for the announced renaissance of Les Halls, which by 2012 should be renovated with the removal of the kitch post-modern structures built in 1979 and the accomplishment of a new project from the french architect David Mangin who won the international architectural contest sponsored by Paris Municipality.
After few houndreds meters i was definitely lost again in space and time, the street crossing the oldest Passages of Paris. I was like a little baby in a toy's shop.... or a flaneur, thrilled, amazed, puzzled, it was like walking in Paris with Walter Benjamin who depicted those places in the 30s and defined them as the first examples of the modern urban lifestyle.
I think the Passages still are vaguely looking like they were in the XIX Century, but in some fully re-interpret the same spirit, especially the ones restoreds and reconverted to their original function: proto-shopping malls for luxurios and bizzare goods. Others lost their original Bourgoise flavour of croissants and smell kebabs and baklavas, they display pakistani and arab shops. I found this fascinating, they reinvented the place, transferring the oriental souk in a parisian Passage... but after all isn't the passage a glass-and-steel re-interpretation of the old oriental bazars?
A cool site about Paris' passages: http://www.passagesetgaleries.org/
From Benjamin W. (1939), Paris Capitale du XIX Siècle.
La majorité des passages sont construits à Paris dans les quinze années qui suivent 1822. La première condition pour leur développement est l’apogée du commerce des tissus. Les magasins de nouveautés, premiers établissements qui ont constamment dans la maison des dépots de marchandises considé- rables, font leur apparition. Ce sont les précurseurs des grands magasins. C’est à cette époque que Balzac fait allusion lorsqu’il écrit : « Le grand poème de l’étalage chante ses strophes de couleurs depuis la Madeleine jusqu’à la porte Saint-Denis. » Les passages sont des noyaux pour le commerce des marchan- dises de luxe. En vue de leur aménagement l’art entre au service du commer- çant. Les contemporains ne se lassent pas de les admirer. Longtemps ils resteront une attraction pour les touristes. Un Guide illustré de Paris dit : « Ces passages, récente invention du luxe industriel, sont des couloirs au plafond vitré, aux entablements de marbre, qui courent à travers des blocs entiers d’immeubles dont les propriétaires se sont solidarisés pour ce genre de spéculation. Des deux cotés du passage, qui reçoit sa lumière d’en haut, s’alignent les magasins les plus élégants, de sorte qu’un tel passage est une ville, un monde en miniature. » C’est dans les passages qu’ont lieu les pre- miers essais d’éclairage au gaz.
No comments:
Post a Comment