Some historic towers

I owe a lot of what now will follow to Jean-Paul, author of PARIS-BISE-ART, who is extremely clever in finding all kinds of  “odd things” in Paris.

I have already posted about Le Temple (The Temple) and Saint-Martin-des-Champs (Saint-Martin-in-the-Fields) and I found, at least personally, what now follows interesting as additional information.

In the previous post about The Temple, I tried to give you the history of the place, how it has been the home of the Knights Templar, the Knights Hospitaller… about the “Grosse Tower”, where the Royal family members were prisoners after the Revolution… and that nothing is left, ... except a tower of the previous surrounding wall. This tower is part of an old apartment building (rue Charlot) and can normally not be visited, but the building is now under restoration and it is possible, at least for the moment, to enter the gate which remains more or less open during the works. So, I went there…

Google Earth allows you to see the 12th century tower from the top; I and my camera could only see it from below. I copied the below illustration from my previous post to hopefully make the “story” clearer.

Very close to the Temple is what used to be the Priory of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, founded in 1060, of which I also tried to give some historical background in my previous post. Here some of the old buildings remain, including the church buildings, a library…. Since the Revolution, this is the site for the National Conservatory for Arts and Crafts (Arts et Métiers) and since 1802 also a fabulous museum.

It was said that nothing remains of the surrounding walls, but Jean-Paul found contradictory information. Inside a do-it-yourself shop (rue Bailly), you can see the bottom of one of the angle towers which on this level is used as a storage room.

Jean-Paul even managed to get inside the tower, which on higher levels is used as stairs for an old apartment building. (I tried to get in also, but…)

Also here I copied an illustration from my previous post.

After this histry "lesson", I would like to prove to you that the spring has arrived here!

I wish you a nice weekend!

Saint Martin des Champs - Art et Métiers

Well, as I showed the metro station “Arts et Métiers” in a previous post (last Sunday), it seems logical that we now make a visit to what you can find on the ground, above the station. What was created during the revolutionary years (in 1794) as the National Conservatory for Arts and Crafts (Arts et Métiers) is still today a higher education state establishment, and since 1802 also a fabulous museum. Originally this was the Priory (or Abbey) of Saint-Martin-des-Champs (St.Martin-in-the-Fields), with very old origins, officially (re)founded in 1060, then well outside the city limits. It’s amazing to see the surface St.Martin – together with the nearby Temple – occupied. St. Martin played for centuries a great role in the French religious history and had some famous priors, including Richelieu.

Contrary to what happened with the Temple (see previous post), some of the old buildings of St.Martin were left to the posterity after the Revolution, including churches, chapels and also a refectory which now is the library of the Conservatory (same architect as the Sainte Chapelle (see previous post) – Peter de Montereau). Some new Conservatory buildings were added during the 19th century and two big new streets crossed the area, including Rue Réaumur (see previous posts), which even made its way between two of the churches, St. Martin and St.Nicolas-des-Champs (see previous post) – see the difference between the 1739 map and today.

The St. Martin church is now part of the museum, the most spectacular from architectural point of view. It was built between the 12th and 14th centuries. This is where you can find some of the bigger objects (top picture) like steam engines, cars and even some of the early aeroplanes including one on which Louis Blériot crossed the Channel in 1909. This is also where you today find (a copy of) the Foucault Pendulum (the original is now transferred to the Panthéon – see previous post), which proves that the globe is rotating. (Umberto Eco’s book “Foucault’s Pendulum” is clearly related to the “Art et Métiers” Museum.)












 

The museum has totally some 80.000 objects and some 15.000 drawings to testify how techniques of different kinds have developed during centuries. You can see the first photographic equipment (Daguerre...), the first telephones, radios, televisions, calculating machines (one of them is a copy of the one I had on my desk in my first job!), computers, satellites... There are also models of some important construction work, including the NY version of the Statue of Liberty. (In previous posts I have talked about the original statue in the Luxembourg Gardens, about the place where the NY version was constructed...). Of course, a great number of beautiful early precision instruments, clocks... are also exposed. I also found the 1948 model of my 2008 Solex (today electrically driven)!