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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Monuments of the 20th century: 

The Barbès metro station and the Louxor cinema

MONUMENTS OF THE 20TH CENTURY: THE BARBÈS MÉTRO AND THE LOUXOR CINEMA

OF COURSEA DESTINATION MUST BE ACCESSIBLE AND AT BARBES TWO LOCAL LINES AND AN EXPRESS LINE INTERSECT

Adapted from an official map

The station itself is an industrial monument and a neighborhood symbol...

Zoom

That also provides areas for exhibits and performances and a walkway waiting to be put to use:

• Paintings can hang from the ribbon of steel under the rails:

Les Intruses ("The Women Intruders"), by the photographer Randa Marufi for the Institute of Islamic Cultures, 2020 / zoom

• It overlooks a painted path that is adapted to skateboarding, bicycling, training,  performances and exhibits:  

The Compagnie Gaby Sourire and Faun Arts,

 

Installation by Ange et Dam

• An "urban promenade" uniting the Barbès, La Chapelle and Stalingrad stops was planned in 1919 but covid and hostile media led to abandoning it.

    Map obtained through the link above

1.28 kilometers, launched in 2019 

 The space in August 2022

For how a similar passage is used

for an annual festivity, please click.

 It's there should more favorable times arise.

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Another fixture is the 1920's cinema next to the station's exit: Please click back for more.

Zoom

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Another site that existed already,

that the City saved and that now is a site for performances:

 The wash-house that literature immortalized

THE WASH-HOUSE THAT LITERATURE IMMORTALIZED

WRITTEN ON THE FACADE: "MADAME MINISTER OF CULTURE, PROTECT THIS THEATER"  

For 20 years a developer tried to obtain the site where Zola set "The Drinking Den's" key scene. When the Socialists won municipal elections, the City acquired it instead (in 2020). 

The Lavoir Moderne Parisien

35 rue Leon 

The novel

Woman ironing by Degas, towards 1869 / zoom;     Poster by Augustin Daly, 1869 / zoom

 

The scene that begins the story 

Anonymous, 1877 / zoom

For the complete fight in Gervaise by René Clément with Maria Schell, 1956, please click.

After an epic combat the heroine joyously spanks her rival on her bare backside. She will take revenge...

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The second floor is used for events. On the ground floor, a bar, a salon and a theater instead of a place a developer owns...

Bar and salon                                            A singer rehearses

 

Maya, a Voice, a musical in French and English: the story of writer Maya Angelou with Ursuline Kairson 

A characteristic program (end of March, 2023)

Because the City stepped in.

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The couturiers' cooperative, now City-backed

THE COUTURIERS' COOPERATIVE, NOW CITY-BACKED

GROWING OUT OF THE CAULDRON OF AFRICAN TAILORS, IT BEGAN IN 2000. THE CITY HELPS SINCE 2012.

It produces prototypes and small series under the label La Fabrique de la Goute d'Or ("Made in La Goutte d'Or")  

Chaussettes orphelines

Its window can show French, Muslim and African cultures: 

Figure invented for Nuit Blanche ("All night," a City-sponsored event) in June 2023

Kitty Hartl, artistic director of the event, makes the figure in the cooperative's workshop.

"I'd seen this Yeti at an artistic event in Nantes, and furnished the model. I wanted 200 for Nuit Blanche. Finally there'll be 20 ... I'd first asked fashion schools but they did not answer or said it was impossible. Then I found this marvelous workshop. It was unhoped for.  

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During the first lockdown the cooperative produced a million masks with filters, which the Mayor ordered when they were still rare:

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Orders include the costumes for Opera productions: 

Fadel makes coats for a performance in 2020. "What was that show?" I asked. "I don't remember," he answered. "I've made costumes for six productions since then."

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A meeting

  

 "The cooperative is not for money alone,

but to show that we are useful."

-- Fadel

It also shows the vitality

of a production rooted in the neighborhood.

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The Institute for the Cultures of Islam

THE INSTITUTE FOR THE CULTURES OF ISLAM

A CENTER PRESENTS MUSLIM REACTIONS TO THE WORLD

Created in 2005 and opened in 2006, its two sites foreshadow the ambitions that take wing a decade later. 

• At rue Leon

• At rue Stephenson

Their exhibits show how Muslim artists living in France view their cultures of origin. From March to July, 2022:

• Persian miniature or modern portrait? And silences, taboos and the forbidden

The past idealized: Cyrus and the Odor of Lilies by Iran's Ryan Yasmineh 

 

Mounds of tangled threads around which one must tread carefully: "Family Photos" by Oassila Arras, French of Algerian origin: 

• Paintings evoke uprooting by linking a Syrian poet's verses to symbols of the sky

Dialogues by Irak's Himat L. Ali

 

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A place to appreciate North African cuisine

The Institute follows Islam's command for charity:

Please click back.

Now for far older infrastructure.

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Proof that interest in a destination is recent:

The "FGO Barbara," open in 2008

PROOF THAT INTEREST IN A DESTINATION IS RECENT: THE FGO BARBARA (opened 2008)

THE SHOWS AT THIS CITY-SPONSORED CULTURAL CENTER ARE FINE, BUT ITS NAME AND EXTERIOR DO NOT DRAW OUTSIDERS 

The name is hermetic: Barbara (1930-1997) was a singer well known when it was built, less so now and "FGO" is short for "Fleury Goutte d'Or," the small street that leads to it and that no one outside the immediate neighborhood has heard of.

*The founders could not have been thinking of foreign visitors: I still confuse it with "NGO," Non-Governmental Organisation. (The French term is "ONG," Organisation Non-Gouvernementale, so the problem does not exist for locals.)  

And its exterior, at least to me, evokes the Bastille:

The FGO Barbara

1 rue de Fleury

The Bastille in the First Days of its Demolition by Hubert Robert, 1789/ zoom

It showcases French or neighborhood performers, as when an evening of slam let poets perform for the first time: 

Waiting to enter.

"Magic Barbès, the word that slams"

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As important as the luxuriously renovated métro stop

for suggesting an international destination,

a private initiative opened in 2021 that the City backs. 

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World and urban music for the planet?