Saturday, May 19, 2012

Deux Parcs de Paris (Buttes Chaumont et Parc de la Vilette)

These are the two parks of Paris which were introduced to me via architecture school. They are both located in the North Eastern part of Paris. 

Buttes Chaumont was created as a garden showcase by Napolean III. It is an artificially formed landscape on the site of an old quarry. Amazingly, many of the large landscape features, including the large cliff and caves are man-made from concrete. The park was originally a very controlled landscape which had political significance by directing the way visitors would look back on the city from the park. It later became overgrown, making it the most natural looking park in Paris despite it's artificial beginnings. 

An alternative description by Temba is that the park is a Parisian couples' perfect spot for a first date. (Meet Temba. He's one of the other interns.)



La Vilette (below) strives not to be the traditional park. Rather than the structured landscape of Buttes Chaumont, it tries to be a stage for human interaction, encouraging play and activity. Included in the park are performance venues, museums, and enormous grass lawns where no activity is defined, except potential interaction with a series of follies. The park is based on the deconstructive principles of Derrida and designed by Tschumi. There are a set of gardens created by different designers. Below are the garden of mirrors and the garden of winds and hills.

(After these two photos were taken, I was warned by a lady walking her dog to put my camera away, because of there being thieves in the park. While I love the idea of this park, this warning was not encouraging, and neither was watching groups of drunk teenage boys pissing on walls midday.)


La Vilette was one of the most racially diverse places I've seen in Paris, probably due to it's location. Each group seemed to be doing it's own thing. Racially diverse but not racially mixed, unsurprisingly. Overall the whole environment reminded me of high school. Nice things, mean things, low class, high class, good potential for fun, but also potential for things to go wrong. Despite all this, I got the sense that the park would have been different if we had been visiting on a weekend, when more of the working class population of Paris could come out too.


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