Le Passerelle Simone de Beauvoir / Bibliotheque Nationale (Perrault)

The wavy form of the Simone de Beauvoir bridge allows people to easily cross and access two different levels at either end of the river. It was also doing a pretty good job at entertaining the children who were rolling up and down the slopes on their scooters.

I found the name of this swimming pool floating in the river to the west of the Passerelle quite curious. Josephine Baker was a famous singer and actress, also known to the world of architecture, because of the Baker house designed by Loos, in which the most striking feature is a swimming pool with glass sides open to the floor below where she would supposedly swim naked. It's a house that comes up when speaking about architecture's role in defining the feminine and also race.

Rather than being a home for her, the house was a sort of stage.

As Baker was an important figure in Paris, i can understand that a building would be named after her, but for those who know, for that building to be a swimming pool brings up other connotations.

The Bibliotheque Nationale has been critiqued as a design failure. After having gone, I'd say it is still a success. Just because the books are not out for display along the windows does not mean that the books are not there and that the towers do not represent them.

And just because the forest garden in the middle is closed to public access does not mean it no longer makes a difference to the quality of the spaces which exist all around it. Just knowing the scale of the landscaping makes that evident.

Photo by Alain Goustard/BnF

The spaces were happily occupied by thousands of people reading, researching, studying, chatting, walking, jogging. Although massive and modern, there was a well considered palette of material textures and smaller nooks which softened the scale and created space for people.