Glass-walk

Now, if you wish to admire the glass dome at the Galeries Lafayette, you can have a walk on a platform, a glass-walk!

You can look not only upwards…

… but also downwards. You are some 16m (52 ft) above ground.

I don’t know if the installation is considered to be permanent or not.  

Maybe women and Scots should be careful about what they wear?

Discrete address

This building housed the railway company “Compagnie du Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans” between 1864 and 1938, when the national railway company ”SNCF” took over. In 2011 another giant company took over, “Google”. This is now where you find the headquarters of “Google France”. Find… well, you have to know. Of course, it’s not a secret address, but you can’t read “Google” anywhere. The company keeps a very low profile, including, as we know, when it comes to tax-paying, but this is perhaps not the forum for this debate.

My personal little problem with “Google” and other giants is that when you have a problem, with e.g. a “Google” product like your (my) blog – Blogger / Blogspot – there is nobody from “Google” to help. No chance to reach anybody. There are “help forums” and similar sites to be found on the net, but advice is given there mostly only by other users, who in general are as “lost” as yourself.

The main entrance have doors with steel bars in “Google” colours, that’s the only indication of what hides behind. 

The entrance is surrounded by two wooden doors, one is for “artists”, “no guest allowed”. The other is officially for “visitors”. Well, I don’t know how to be invited… and have no need for it, but when my now ten year old blog disappeared for a while (before coming back without any explanation a few days later), or when the “Google+” feature, badly functioning and now abandoned by “Google”, made it impossible for me to work with my blog… I would have liked to talk to someone… Apart from that, I’m a happy blogger. (Thanks “Google”!)

Scaffolding

I think this scaffolding is just too impressive and must be shown. Well, there is still time to see and show it. The restoration works will last for some six years, costing some 10M € - despite the fact that the church, Sainte-Trinité, is “only” some 150 years old.

Just a reminder: Since 1905, there is a French law about the Separation of Church and State, based on the freedom of religious exercise with a complete neutrality of the State. However, the religious buildings, the buildings only, previous to 1905, are still under ownership of the State (e.g. cathedrals) or of the municipal governments. This explains why you can read the text in front of the church that the renovation work is undertaken by the City of Paris.   

I already made a post about the church, see here, so I will not repeat myself too much, but just say that the church is open during the work… and that the parish still offers simple meals to needy people.

… and, of course, I could not resist against entering the church and take some photos again.

Fragonard... not the painter

There is a Fragonard Museum in Paris. It has actually nothing to do with the painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) - nor with his wife or sons, also excellent artists - except that Eugène Fuchs, who in 1926 founded the “Fragonard Perfume” company in Grasse in the south of France, the “capital of perfume”, was an admirer of the painter, who was born in Grasse. “Fragonard” has thus production in Grasse, but also in the village of Eze (see previous post), still on the French Riviera. In Paris, they have rather recently opened this new shop and especially (new) museum in what used to be a well-known furniture shop – and before that even a theatre, a velodrome… I wrote about the – pedestrian - street where you can find it in a previous post.

I made a museum visit, guided by an excellent young lady. What can I say more? It’s free of charge, shopping is not compulsory, the place is beautiful, you learn about perfume making … and at the end they even let you mix your own little perfume.

More about Jules Lavirotte buildings - but who was he?

Some ten years ago, I wrote about some Art Nouveau buildings by the architect Jules Lavirotte (1864-1929), the most famous ones perhaps to be found on Avenue and Square Rapp (see here), but I also wrote about the Céramic Hotel (see here) and on a building on Avenue Messine (see here). There are a few more to be seen in Paris, so I thought it was time to make a more complete “report”.

Lavirotte's first contract in 1898 – he was 34, was obviously for 151, Rue de Grenelle. The style is not yet really so striking. I feel that it’s more particularly the front door which gives you an Art Nouveau feeling.

In 1899 he was the architect of Hôtel Montessuy, 12 Rue Sédillot. This was built as a private mansion for the Countess Montessuy and we can see that here Lavirotte has been much more creative.  The building is today to a large extent transformed in its interior – it has become an Italian school.

1900-1901 he built at 29 Avenue Rapp and…

… at Square Rapp the buildings for which he is the most famous and which definitely are Art Nouveau. The spectacular part is of course to a large extent due to the ceramics and Lavirotte’s collaboration with Alexandre Bigot (1862-1927), a ceramicist who also worked a lot with other Art Nouveau architects, like Hector Guimard (see posts here). Lavirotte made Square Rapp, which was finished first, into his private address.

A “softer” Art Nouveau version is to be found at 134 Rue de Grenelle, finished in 1903. Some prominent people have lived in this building, including Edgar Faure.

The Art Nouveau is again in full bloom, to a large part thanks to the ceramics by Alexandre Bigot, at this hotel building from 1904, which actually has the name Céramic Hôtel.  

A surprisingly modest building - a “moderate rent” one -, from 1906, is to be found at 169 Boulevard Lefebvre. Exceptionally, you cannot read Lavirotte’s name on the facade.

This building from 1907, 23 Avenue Messine, is again very fashionable, but again less extravagant, although extremely decorated thanks to the sculptor Léon Binet, with whom Lavirotte worked regularly. The original building, which we can see on an old photo, received some additional floors during the 1930’s.

Immediately neighbouring this building, also from 1907, you can find this one, 6 Rue Messine.  

Lavirotte lived another 20 years…  Who was he? What did he look like? Almost impossible to find anything about his later activities, his personal life… but I found that there is now, at last and since last year, a book about him – which I will buy. It seems that he got married in 1897 to Jeanne, a bit older than he… , that he had a car accident around 1920 which stopped his career.. … Once I have the book, maybe I can tell you a bit more. 

Rue Douai

Rue Douai is a rather long street in the 9^th arrondissement, created during the 1840’s. It goes from Rue Victor Massé (on which I have already posted a number of times, e.g. here and here) to Place de Clichy (on which I have also posted, e.g. here and here). We are just north of what is referred to as the “Nouvelle Athènes”, we may rather be in the “Pigalle” area. Among these then rather new streets, we could during the 19^th century meet a large part of the then, but especially later, famous members of the artistic world. Along the street you cross also the Square Berlioz (see previous post)... 

...and looking right and left in the side streets, it’s easy to see in which neighbourhood you are.

The street is also well-known by the fans of modelling, especially model trains.

Even more is the street known for the place to buy instruments, especially guitars.

There are also a few references to what many considered to be typical Pigalle activities.

At no. 22 of the street, you will find a beautiful building (see also top picture), during the 19^th century belonging to Michel-Victor Cruchet (1815-99), who was a successful sculptor-ornamentalist.

However, the place is today especially known for having been the home of the then newly married Georges Bizet. Together with his wife Geneviève, born Halévy, they lived here the years 1869-75. He was about 30 and Geneviève about 20 when they moved in. Their son Jacques was born in 1871. Georges had already spent all his life in the area. He was fairly successful as a musician and composer, but not enough to be really rich. He still gave piano lessons… and the family lived in a modest flat in this building… and also in a rented country house in the Paris suburbs – at Bougival. Those were the years when George composed “Carmen” – libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy - they had written a lot together already, especially for Jacques Offenbach. Ludovic Halévy was a cousin of Bizet’s wife Geneviève. “Carmen” was first performed March 3, 1875, without success and acclaim. Georges became ill, suffered one or two heart attacks and died three months later, 36 years old. 

Here we can see some photos of Georges, Geneviève, their son Jacques… and of Ludovic Halévy and Henri Meilhac.

… and some illustrations dating from the first "Carmen" performances, including a photo of the first “Carmen”.

Geneviève, the wife, later opened a “salon”, well visited by the distinguished Paris society. She married a lawyer some ten years later. She died, depressed, in 1926. Her son Jacques, who became a medical doctor and was a friend of Marcel Proust… had died four years earlier.

Let’s listen to “Habanera”.

      

 

Talking about “salon”… At no. 50, lived the famous mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot, sister of another famous singer, Maria Malibran. Pauline was not only a leading singer, she also played the piano (had taken lessons by Franz Liszt…), played four-hands with Clara Schumann, spoke six languages fluently, was the friend of Georges Sand, Frédéric Chopin, Jenny Lind, Charles Gounod,  Hector Berlioz… and perhaps especially the Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev who actually spent his last twelve years here.

A last word about the no. 15 with Eugène Viollet-le-Duc as architect. He may be better known for some restoration work, including the Notre Dame Cathedral.