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Paris Pages by Lady_Mystique
 Lady_Mystique's Paris Travelogues | | | |
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| Page Views: 1,181 Last Visit to Paris: - | THE LATEST ON PARIS by Lady_Mystique - last update: Aug 31, 2006 |
MUSÉE DE L'ORANGERIE REOPENS After six years of work the much awaited reopening of the Orangerie Museum has opened it's doors this week. The simmering set of grand waterscapes by the French Impressionist Claude Monet is back on pubic view and now seen in a new light as the painter intended.
The museum officially reopened to the public on May 17. The national museums 28.9-million euro redesign also provides a new 1,000-square-metre exhibition space for one of the country's major collections of Impressionist and Modern art.
The new museum restores to prominence Monets 'Les Nympheas' a monumental set of eight two-metre high canvases depicting ponds and water lilies. A 1960s redesign had obstructed a skylight over the long oval rooms designed by the artist to house the canvases, depriving them of natural light. Monet painted the Nympheas between 1914 and 1926 at his French country home in Giverny, in the northwestern region of Normandy. He offered them as a gift to France in 1918 following the end of World War I. The artist intended the Nympheas rooms, with the soothing colors of the water scenes, to be an "asylum of meditation," according to information panels in the museum.
The museums other holding, the Walter-Guillaume collection, comprises 144 canvases by painters including Auguste Renoir, Paul Cezanne, Henri Matisse, André Derain, Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani and Henri Rousseau.
The 1852 Orangerie building stands next to Paris Place de la Concorde in the Tuileries public gardens, where it was built as an annex of the nearby Louvre museum.
Originally opened in 1927 housing the Monet paintings, the museum was expanded in the 1960s to accommodate the Walter-Guillaume collection after it was sold to the state by the widow of the Parisian collector Paul Guillaume.
By the time it closed in 2000 for renovation, 500,000 visitors a year were flocking to the museum.
A team led by architect Olivier Brochet set out to undo certain features of the 1960s design, making the Nympheas directly accessible from the entry hall and removing an extra concrete floor that had been installed over their display rooms.
For the Walter-Guillaume collection, they dug out a new space below ground level, also lit by natural light and including an auditorium and a 500-square-metre room for temporary exhibitions.
But... the reopening was delayed by an archaeological find in the ground below the museum. Workers discovered a 55-metre stretch of a 16th-century defensive town wall cutting across the area scheduled to house the temporary exhibition space. The government ruled that the archaeological remains should be preserved, obliging architects to alter the planned shape of the exhibition space so the stones could remain in their historical position.
The 20-metre stretch of the wall has become part of the museums exhibition now visible inside the renovated Orangerie. Overall the space of the museum has been almost doubled to 6,300 square meters.Musée de l'Orangerie
Jardin des Tuileries
tel: 01 44 77 80 07
www.musee-orangerie.fr
Open everyday except Tuesday.
Entry for individuals 12:30pm - 7pm (until 9pm on Fridays)
Entrance fee: 6.50 Euro |
'Adieu' to Samaritaine The landmark Paris department store La Samaritaine is to close its doors for several years. It's final business day will be on Tuesday 14 June.
The closing was due to what inspectors say are severe issues with the building's fire safety.
The landmark building which sits on the banks of the Seine River a historic, listed art deco structure. Police reports state that it is in need of urgent renovations to replace antiquated electrical circuits, malfunctioning smoke extraction systems and flammable wooden flooring.
"The situation is so alarming that I cannot permit the store to be opened to the public any longer... There is no question of taking the slightest risk," said La Samaritaine's president Philippe de Beauvoir.
At a general assembly Friday morning (10 June), 750 employees were told they will be retained on full pay, though only some 300 - mainly security and administrative staff - will be expected to turn up for work. Philippe de Beauvoir, as quoted in the newspaper 'le Parisien': "We think it will take several years of work, probably a minimum of three to four years. The decision to close is the worst solution economically." However, he added, staff have been told they will be retained on full pay.
The elegant building is described on its website as "an architectural monument in which Art Nouveau and Art Deco blend harmoniously." As many as 50,000 people pass through the department store's doors each day, buying a wide variety of goods.
The store was originally opened in 1869 by Theodore-Ernest Cognacq. Cognacq was born on October 2, 1839, in Saint-Martin-de-Ré (Charente-Maritime). At the age of 12 he was forced to leave school to earn his living. He would do this as an itinerant merchant in Bordeaux. Ernest Cognacq tries his chances in Paris and it's several department stores. After many years of struggle he would finally find success opening his own shop near the Pont-Neuf (first being a street peddler in the balcony on the second arch of the Pont-Neuf). This was near the site of an old hydraulic pump of Samaritaine (destroyed in 1813) where the store would receive it's nickname.
La Samaritaine is one of the best-loved Paris emporia but the last 15 years have seen a drastic decline in sales. The current owners LVMH, was planning to bring the store upmarket, as a showcase for its numerous designer labels such as Christian Dior and Lacroix.
Renovating La Samaritaine could cost approximately 100 mln eur, said Bruno Villeneuve, the shop's managing director. He said LVMH will decide how the work will be carried out in a few weeks, once it has talked to specialists and staff. The renovation will take three to six years if La Samaritaine was closed altogether (eight to ten years if the work was done bit by bit).
The store -- which was bought four years ago by the luxury goods house LVMH - will shut next Wednesday and is unlikely to reopen before 2009, he said.
"Of course I'm sad," shopper Liliane Petit told Reuters. "It's a very famous shop because it's very old, of my parents' generation and my grandparents'. I've been coming here since I was a girl." |
|  | "Paris Disparu"... a walking tour If Haussmann hadn't left his mark on Paris, then who would have? And what would Paris look like today?
Get a hold of a copy of this book by Leonard Pitt and you will discover that this author knows old Paris beautifully. He does more than simply line up old photos of the city like an arrangement of fruit on a stand. He explains, he pinpoints, he dismantles and compares. More importantly, he lays the images of old Paris over the modern city. Then, as if by magic, the depth of the Parisian past reveals itself to the attentive stroller.
Mister Pitt knows Paris. This city where he studied years ago with the mime Etienne Decroux.
One thing of particular note when looking at the photos of the city taken before the turn of the 20th-century, is the evident lack of greenery. Barely a tree stood along the cobblestoned streets and blackened stone buildings. Perhaps the tree at Square Vivani was one of only a handful! Life seemed poor, dark and dismal.
In today's Paris, along the grand boulevards with their symmetrical, straight-lined Haussmannian "pierre-de-taille" buildings, the trees stand tall, well tended, springing with life and blocking the view of the buildings all spring and summer long. While so much of Paris dating before the 19th-century is gone, never to be discovered again, replaced by 21st-century icons such as Starbucks, the Centre Georges Pompidou and La Défense, is that all so bad? What would have been the alternative?
We wrestle with the question of progress, good or bad? And we know that it's impossible to stop, but only to give proper direction. |
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 Comments for Lady_Mystique about Paris | | | | |
nyperose Sat Sep 20, 2008 04:56 UTC
Splendide page sur Paris! J'adore la ville lumière:-D | Herkbert Wed Sep 3, 2008 22:32 UTC
Maria.. you captured my favorite picture for your main pic. I have that shot but alas, it was during the day. I am hoping to try again when we return to Paris in December. Loved your tips and pics.. Tom | Nemorino Wed Sep 3, 2008 22:05 UTC
You've added dozens of fine new tips and updates to this page since I last stopped by, which was on April 2, 2006. Again I enjoyed reading your highly literate and entertaining (and informative!) travelogues and tips, with a nice personal touch. | vinc_bilb Wed May 14, 2008 07:45 UTC
Coming back from Paris (as tourist, not for work!), and I had a "pensée" for you, having in mind your Montmartre by night picture (and some other). How are you Maria ? |
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