III.5.9.xx TOMORROW'S DESTINATION?

MENU: 3.5.9.xx Tomorrow's destination?

DOES THE SPECTACULAR RENOVATION OF A METRO STATION SUGGEST THAT BARBES AND LA GOUTTE D'OR MAY BECOME AN INTERNATIONAL DESTINATION FOR WORLD AND URBAN CULTURE? 

Run-down and extremely crowded, the Château Rouge station had to be renovated. 

Vito

It was, in 2015-2017.

 

The tracks lead only to the North African and African neighborhoods far from the center. One would expect the renovation to be comfortable but spartan, as everywhere else.

Yet it makes use of very expensive tiles from the famed Sèvres National Manufactory, which Louis XV founded to promote French porcelain in 1740, and that Cameroon's Barthélémy Toguo hand-painted:

Roots refer to the diversity of  residents' origins.

 Photo and article (in French) / zoom

  Togué is a former resident of La Goutte d'Or. The National Library exhibited his work in 2024.

That decor combines royal culture and immigration in a way that is welcoming, reassuring and prestigious. It must be directed to outsiders.

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Other reasons for thinking that

these territories may become a destination:

Existing infrastructure, City-backed innovations,

an extraordinary new center for music

and the population itself. 

• Monuments of the 20th century: the Barbès metro station and the Louxor cinema

• The wash-house that literature immortalized

• The couturiers' cooperative, now City-backed

• The Institute of Islamic Cultures 

• Proof that interest in an international destination is recent: the FGO Barbara

• World and urban culture for the planet?

• A portal toward the music of the outskirts

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Next,

Monuments of the 20th century: 

The Barbès metro station and the Louxor cinema