Paris and its builders have always liked to experiment with the new, modern and controversial – from Baron Haussmann to Eiffel and Le Corbusier – and the trend continued to more recent days. Time has proved the critics of the time wrong and many of the ambitious projects became iconic symbols of this colourful and [...]
Meaning “street of gaiety,” Rue de la Gaîté was at the end of the country road leading from Clamart to the gate of Montparnasse. The street stood outside the old wall, which still remains nearby at Place Denfert-Rochereau. Taverns were standing outside the wall to avoid paying taxes, particularly on the wine. In 1860 Emile [...]
Located in the fifth arrondissement (district) of Paris, the area around Rue Mouffetard is one of the oldest and liveliest neighborhoods in the city. It runs between the Place Contrescarpe, at its northern end, and Square Saint-Médard at the southern end. There are many restaurants, cafés, bars and shops along the street and an open-air street market [...]
Paris is famous for its markets, small or big, and getting fresh produce from them is still very much part of Parisian life. In the popular and elegant 7th arrondissement, near the Champs de Mars park and the Eiffel Tower, Rue Cler is a cute little market-street. Although more and more tourists visit Rue Cler [...]
Les Halles is an area of Paris, located in the 1er arrondissement. It is named for the large central wholesale marketplace, which was demolished in 1971, to be replaced with an underground modern shopping precinct, the Forum des Halles. Special is that the open air center area is below street level, like a pit. Beneath [...]
The Wine Museum of Macau, is a space of cultural, recreational and cultural characteristics, where the visitor has a date with the History of the Wine and the Vineyard and the wine production and with a complete exhibition of vintage and new wines. Throughout the space divided in three big areas – Historical information, Cellar/Museum, [...]
The Church of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul is located in the 10e arrondissement of Paris, and is dedicated to Saint Vincent de Paul. It gave its name to Saint-Vincent-de-Paul district. The church was built during 1824-1844, on the site of the former Saint-Lazare jail enclosure. In that enclosure had been sited the Maison Saint-Lazare, occupied by Vincent de Paul— he lived and worked there — and afterwards [...]
Photography has recently played a prominent part in the exhibition programme of the Cartier Foundation. Along with details of how to visit the gallery and a timetable of its activities there is also an online gallery with projects made specifically for the website. These can be, like the site itself, difficult to navigate but do [...]
May 5, 1821 Napoleon Ier dies out in the island of Sainte-Hélène where he had been exiled to since 1815. He is buried in the shade of some weeping willows. Its mortal remains remains there until October 15, 1840. It is in 1840 that was decided by king Louis-Philippe the transfer the remains of the [...]
Why does the Place du Tertre swarm with mediocre artists clamoring to paint your portrait? As is often the case in Paris, it’s Baron Haussmann’s fault! But for once, the baron did some good along with the damage when, by razing many working-class neighbourhoods in central Paris, he unwittingly encouraged the development of Montmartre (which [...]
Right in the middle of the fashionable Marais district, in between the Pompidou Center and the Place des Vosges, the Picasso museum is entirely devoted to the great spanish painter Pablo Picasso (1881/1973). Housed in the Hôtel Salé, a 1656 superb city mansion, it was opened in 1985 with 203 paintings and 156 pieces of sculpture coming [...]
The Ménagerie du Jardins des Plantes, Paris, once was a dreadful place, with small cages, rusty wire all over and a terrarium that smelt like an open sewer. I visited it several times during the seventies because it was conveniently placed, close to the Gare d’Austerlitz and to the Jardin des Plantes with its museums [...]
It is all, every last bit of it, all reinforced concrete and granite and zillions of square metres of every kind and colour of glass that you can think of. It is under construction forever. It has its own ring road. Train station. Now it has Metro too, added to the RER that is even [...]
L’église de la Madeleine, or L’église Sainte-Marie-Madeleine (or simply “La Madeleine”), is a church in the 8th arrondissement of Paris that was designed as a temple to the glory of Napoleon’s army. Three false starts were made on building a church on this site. The first design, commissioned in 1757 with construction begun in 1764, [...]
Paris’ original attempt at urban planning, the Place des Vosges is now its oldest square. The square symmetry of the square, with its ground floor arcade, consists of 39 (some say 36) houses – each made of red brick with stone facings. Its construction was under Henri IV from 1605 – 1612. The site was [...]
The Paris Catacombs originate from the 18th century – It should’ve been named “municipal ossuary”. The name of “Catacombs” has been given to this ossuary after the Catacombs of Rome, the name given to the antique cemetery located next to the Appian way. The Innocents’ cemetery (next to Saint-Eustache, in the district of ‘les Halles’) [...]
One of the world’s most prestigious academic libraries, the Bibliothèque de la Sorbonne chose Millennium as a replacement for its aging library automation system. “The adaptable and flexible structure of Millennium, provided by APIs and Java clients, means that we will be able to continue to follow our traditional and well-developed working practices, ensuring that [...]
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