Close to Parc Montsouris...

I have already blogged about some of the streets around the Parc Montsouris (see here, here and here) and also about the park itself (see here), but I made a new walk. As the wisterias were in full bloom (now some three weeks ago) it somehow made the walk even more attractive although the flowers of course sometimes were hiding some of the remarkable buildings. The red dotted lines correspond to the walk I made. (The great dark rectangle corresponds to one of the most important water reservoirs in Paris - from 1873).  

I concentrated first on some of the villas in the streets on the western side of the park. Most of the buildings here were built during the 1920-30’s. The large windows indicate that they often were built for artists and the architecture is often as you would expect from this period, but not always….

One of the small streets in named after the painter Georges Braque who occupied no. 6. The house which today is hiding behind high trees was built in 1927 and Georges Braque lived here until his death in 1963. The architect of his house – and several other in the area - was Auguste Perret on whom I blogged here.

Another remarkable street is Square de Montsouris. Once again you will find some spectacular buildings, some by famous architects like (again) Auguste Perret (and his brother), Le Courbusier (the white one on the right on the last collage)... (See one of my posts about Le Corbusier here.) Artists have lived (live?) here as well, but some of the buildings in red bricks were originally built for “rent-controlled housing”, for people with modest revenues. The design of a street number plate (4) could indicate that here once was a brothel (but I have no proof).

Not far from here is Villa Seurat (on which I already wrote here), famous for having housed Henry Miller, Soutine, Dali…. Again we find Auguste Perret as architect, but also André Lurçat, including one villa for his brother Jean Lurçat, famous for temporary tapestry.

Here are some other villas and buildings in the area.

Something completely different: The little street Rue Marie Rose is the address of a Franciscan convent built in the 1930’s…  

… some twenty years after Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, had left a flat at no. 4, where he lived 1909-12.  (His mistress Inessa Armand lived at no. 2.) For a while Lenin’s modest flat was a museum and Nikita Khrushchev came here during a state visit in 1960. The museum is now closed and the occupants have even removed the commemorative plaque.