III. VITALITY ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE TRACKS

CHEAP CONSTRUCTION MAKES THE OUTSKIRTS DREARY, CHEAP RENTS MAKE THEM VITAL

       Doll by Brazil's Marcia de  Carvalho,  founder of a shop that we will come to

A fête in the northern periphery's La Goutte d'Or

Outskirts and immigrants

• Europe's "Chinatown"

• Eastern Paris, where new worlds emerge

• "Barbès don't panic"

• The unhailed energies of la Goutte d'Or

*      *      *

Next,

II.2.1

Europe's "Chinatown"

III.1.2. TOWERS AHEAD OF THEIR TIME

"OLYMPIADES," PROJECT APPROVED IN 1966, ABANDONED IN 1977

A site unique to Paris

• "The neighborhood needed cleaning up..."

• An enclave

• Autonomy

• The royal squares inspire

• A historical panel that skips what counts

*    *    *

Next,

"The neighborhood needed cleaning up..."

3.1. EUROPE'S "CHINATOWN"

MENU: 3.1. Europe's "Chinatown"

EUROPE'S LARGEST ASIAN NEIGHBORHOOD IS ON PARIS'S SOUTHEASTERN FRINGE

(IN THE 13TH DISTRICT)

Zoom

Symbols: towers and color 

  A neighborhood 

that few associate with Paris

• A walk where cultures mix

• Towers ahead of their time

• Colors of streets and shops

• Back to the towers and beyond them

• Asians enliven Parisian sobriety

• Some of the restaurants

•  Asians emerge from the shadows

*    *    *

Next,

 3.1.1.

A walk where cultures mix

"THE NEIGHBORHOOD NEEDED CLEANING UP..."

 

BUT NOT IN THE WAY MEANT FOR THE TRENCHES OF WORLD WAR I.

One could 'renovate' on a human scale, but this delirious and oppressive gigantism came instead." 

-- Léo Malet, 1978, 

Preface to new edition of Brouillard au pont de Tolbiac, 1956

("Fog on Tolbiac Bridge")

The towers hover over little houses. 

Meant to announce utopia, the towers seemed symbols of soulless

technocracy and their apartments did not sell.

"Will we still find what used to be

the living heart of the neighborhood...

workers and craftspeople, peaceful, humble folk, modest marginals [... ] little whores with flowers in their hair [... ] people who were not very smart, probably, but who were human [... ] they no longer have a place in this technocratic universe." 

-- Brouillard sur le pont de Tolbiac, continued  

That rebuff let refugees from the Vietnam war find decent, affordable housing. Other Asians followed and "Chinatown" was born.

(From 1975)

                                          Zoom         

            Musée national de l'histoire de l'immigration  

Poster announcing an exhibit on immigration of southeast Asians

Ramsay Casadesus Rawson 

The horizontal roofs were part of the original project, so recall pagodas by coincidence. 

*    *    *

Next,

An enclave

AN ENCLAVE

ON A SLAB, "LES OLYMPIADES" IS DETACHED FROM THE NEIGHBORHOOD 

While color reinforces its difference from sober surroundings:

*    *    *

Next,

Autonomy

AUTONOMY

IT HAS...

A mall:

The multitude evokes community, as in Black neighborhoods.

And as well as what one would find in a French town (a supermarket, a pharmacy, an optician, fast foods, restaurants, social services)...

"Sixth PRIZE

THE BEST TRADITIONAL BAGUETTE

 City of Paris, 2024

Pottery-making

Space for gatherings that lack a meeting-room (these activists plan a demonstration for migrants without official papers).

Only a bank and post office

 are missing.

 *    *    *

 Next, 

The royal squares inspire

THE ROYAL SQUARES INSPIRE

LIKE THEM, IT IS SET APART...

*For the model, please click.

Its architecture is homogeneous and straight lines converge toward the center...  

Where there was, toward 2024, a statue of a king:

 

Though accidental, 

 it occupied the position of royal statues

or their later replacements, 

at the point where straight lines intersect.

 

The way in which this enclave

was imagined suggests 

looking to the past to announce the future.

*    *    *

Next,

A historical panel that skips what counts

A HISTORICAL PANEL THAT SKIPS WHAT COUNTS

IT IS ONE OF ABOUT 700 PANELS THAT DOT THE CITY, AND LIKE MOST OF THEM OMITS THE ESSENTIAL

This one is about construction. It says nothing about abandoning  the project and Asians finding affordable housing as a result. 

The details of building are irrelevant to most readers...

"Building this ensemble between 1968 and 1975 under the direction of the architect Michel Holley was an element of the restauration known as Italie 13. The site was then occupied by the Gobelins warehouse: it was rebuilt underground and covered over with a slab on which were built towers, buildings and boutiques. Underground automobile circulation, sites for walking and equipment on the slab, high-rising habitations, such were the principles of the functionalist urbanization [...].

That audacious modernist architecture became a cosmopolitan site, Asiatics establishing themselves there from 1975." 

Rejecting the "audacious modernist architecture" is not mentioned nor is "Asiatics establishing themselves there" explained.

By listing details of little interest such signs turn people away from history itself.

For other examples please click here —

and for an exception, here (please scroll down).

*    *    *

Next,

3.1.3. 

A walk where cultures mix

III.1.1. A WALK WHERE CULTURES MIX

TWO STREETS PIERCE THROUGH THE SOUTHEASTERN FRINGE...

(THE AVENUES DE CHOISY AND D'IVRY)

And an area that is both French and Asian.

      Adapted from a Google map

Pharmacy on Avenue de Choisy

In brief

• "Start at "porte" (gate) de Choisy 

• Come to "L'Arche de la Fraternité"

• There and nearby, cultures intertwine

*    *    *

Next,

Start at porte ("gate") de Choisy