("OLYMPIADES," PROJECT APPROVED IN 1966, ABANDONED IN 1977)
"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 Fog on Tolbiac Bridge
(Brouillard au pont de Tolbiac, 1956)
Meant to announce utopia, they seemed symbols of soulless
technocracy and their apartments did not sell.
The towers hover over little houses.
"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."
-- Léo Malet
That rebuff let refugees from the Vietnam war find decent, affordable housing. Other Asians followed and "Chinatown" was born.
(From 1975)
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 a fortunate coincidence.
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"Les Olympiades" is detached from the neighborhood and color reinforces the separation from the sober surroundings:
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It is an autonomous city, with...
- A mall
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- And besides what one would find in a French town (a supermarket, a pharmacy, an optician, fast foods, restaurants, social services)...
