Below the stairs...

The street, with some imposing stairs, which you find on one of the sides of the “Palais de Tokyo” (see previous post here) is named “Rue de la Manutention”. As “manutention” may be translated into “handling”, this indicates that we are in a previously industrial area. Since the 17^th century we could find a soap factory here, which later was replaced by some military installations … until the creation of the “Palais de Tokyo” in 1937. Several architects were involved then in the project (but names like Le Corbusier, Mallet-Stevens… were not retained). The “Palais de Tokyo” opened in 1937 for the “International Exposition of Art and Technology in Modern Life”. *

Here we can get an impression of what the area looked like in the middle of and by the end of the 19^th century.

But now I wish to concentrate on what you find today along the street, “Rue de la Manutention”.

The back side of the Palais is full of stairs, not only real ones.

The wall towards the higher "Avenue de Wilson" are since 2016 covered by illustrations by street artist Pablo Tomek.

Along the building, there is a “garden”, which you actually can enter. It was obviously originally created in 2002 with some artistic ambitions - one actually left different pieces of this garden to be developed by different, nominated, people. 16 years later I have the impression that some of these persons possibly have lost part of their original ambition, but, it’s of course also late in the season.

However, there are some flowers…

… some fruits and vegetables.

One has prepared to welcome some bird families…

… and, especially, as now all over Paris, there are some bee hives … and a lot of happy bees.

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*/ By the way, it seems that the “Tulips” by Jeff Koons on which I talked in this post, finally (… and if I may say so, fortunately) will be placed elsewhere than in front to the Palais de Tokyo, probably somewhere in the park behind the Petit Palais.