Sunday, November 28, 2021

HIGH RISES BUILT IN ADVANCE OF THEIR TIME HOUSE ASIAN REFUGEES

"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



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." 
-- Continuation

The towers hover over little houses. 

That rebuff let refugees from the Vietnam war find decent, affordable housing. Other Asians followed and "Chinatown" was born.
(From 1975)

                                          Zoom          Poster, Musée national de l'histoire de l'immigration  

            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. 

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A very different kind of place

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