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A. The remarkable thing about Paris is that buildings giving evidence of hundreds of years of history and traces of the traditional are infused with the lively spirit of the present day. For example, the Marais quarter in the third and fourth arrondissements, which is a historic district with venerable buildings from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, is located adjacent to the city's most fashionable cultural quarter around the Pompidou Center. It is precisely because the old cityscape has not stagnated but is still growing through constant exposure to new stimulants that the vitality of the city is still strong. Politicians have also introduced new, epoch-making proposals one after the other into the city, such as the series of "Grands Projets" which started with the Pompidou Center. It was certainly a huge experiment on the city, promoted through government initiatives --- the work of President Georges Pompidou was carried forward by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, then François Mitterrand, and finally by the current president, Jacques Chirac. This experiment was a great success, and the city of Paris proclaimed its renewal to the world. In this way, France regained its international standing through cultural achievement. On the other hand, there were figures such as André Malraux, who as the Minister of Cultural Affairs under Charles de Gaulle enacted a law for the conservation of historic districts... Q. As author of books such as La Condition Humaine, the Malraux was a unique politician known as a humanist for his involvement in the anticolonial movement in Vietnam, wasn't he? A. The 'Malraux Law' he enacted is not designed to conserve individual historical structures, but to conserve the streetscape of whole areas of a city. While monumental buildings had been carefully restored, rows of ordinary buildings were being reduced to rubble in the name of rationalization. The Malraux Law preserves such commonplace buildings. The Marais quarter I mentioned earlier is typical of the redevelopment projects to which the Malraux Law was applied. On this trip, I went to the Place des Vosges in Marais, which I hadn't visited in years. It was to attend the presentation ceremony of the diploma and medal of the Académie d'Architecture --- which I hadn't yet been able to accept because I was too busy (laughs) --- and to give an accompanying lecture at the Académie, which is located near the corner of the plaza. Sitting in a café in the arcade at around five in the afternoon, I could relax and look out over the plaza I hadn't seen for so long. It was as beautiful as always. People were coming and going across the plaza, while children ran around shouting in the park at its center. The brick-colored buildings in the background have not changed for centuries, accommodating the daily lives of the locals. I was truly envious of the environment. Undoubtedly, the city's memory is etched into that place. Q. If you were to make some recommendations, what buildings should we see in Paris? A. Since the end of the nineteenth century, European architectural space --- previously created with massive masonry construction --- has been liberated through the use of such new materials as iron, glass, and concrete, and has become lighter. I think it would be interesting to follow this process of change by looking at individual buildings. Let's take the example of Henri Labrouste's Bibliothèque Nationale, completed in 1868. In the main reading room, nine domes supported by iron columns and lacy iron arches cover a space thirty meters square, enclosed by masonry walls. At the top of each dome is a round skylight about four meters across, through which subdued natural light pours into the space. The people of the 1860s, on first stepping into this reading room from their heavy cityscape, must have wondered at this expansive space which seems so open... Although not such a large building, this library stands alongside such glorious, monumental structures as the Eiffel Tower and the Galerie des Machines of the 1889 International Exposition in Paris, as an important structure signaling the raising of the curtain on the age of iron and glass. |
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