Théodore Frère, Promenade de l’Impératrice Eugénie en chameau dans le désert, 1869 © Souvenir de Ferdinand de Lesseps et du Canal de Suez / Lebas Photographie Paris When you enter the first room of the exhibition “L’Epoque du Canal de Suez des pharaons au XXI ème siècle” at IMA, the red velvet curtain, the large screens with photographs commented by … Read More
Alvar Aalto so inspiring at Cité de l’architecture!
We all know Finnish designer and architect Alvar Aalto‘s emblematic Savoy vase and wooden stools but at Cité de l’architecture‘s retrospective, we learn more about him, his many churches and office buildings, and we discover his own house and offices. It is a beautiful show under the brick arcades of the museum at Trocadero. And since Aalto was mostly preoccupied … Read More
Lafayette Anticipations, a new meeting place in the Marais
The staircase and elevator are particularly well conceived
The concept store Colette closed last December, a new artists’s store is born in the Marais : « A Rebours » inspired by Joris Karl Huysmans’ famous novel (Against the grain), a novelty store which is the tip of the icebeerg of the new Lafayette Anticipations Foundation. You will not find an art collection there but a building enlarged and renovated by … Read More
Beautiful architecture for watch straps!
It is quite extraordinary to walk into a new boutique and find oneself immediately happy. This is what good architecture does to a space. And when I heard architect, Boris Cindric explain the mixture of materials he used for the Camille Fournet shop on rue Cambon, I started feeling even more interested.
Notre Dame de la Compassion, a very special church!
I have passed this chapel designed in the shape of a Greek cross a million times on my way to Neuilly and yet, had never been inside. It took a close friend’s mother to die for me to discover the most moving monument of Paris’ 17 th arrondissement. Notre Dame de la Compassion is a church devoted to parents who have … Read More
“Entrée libre” at Bibliothèque historique de la Ville de Paris
Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris, is one of those rare and secret monuments in the Marais, where you can enter freely and consult magazines from a hundred years ago. And no one in Paris is aware of it. After two years of modernization, Emmanuelle Toulet, its director, was hosting three days of public visits and has decided to … Read More
Three religions at the heart of diplomacy
As often, it is a highly political exhibition that takes place at Musée de l’histoire de l’Immigration, in Porte Dorée, where « Il était trois fois, Lieux Saints partagés » treats of Judaism, Christianism and Islam in their shared geography of the Mediterranean. This original exhibition has matured over five years (it was first shown in a shorter version in Marseille two … Read More
Magical Genoa in 36 hours
The occasion was the wedding reception for Serena Cattaneo Adorno with Thomas Repelski and I would not have missed this long coveted visit to Genoa for anything! On the 75 mn flight from Paris, guests to the wedding conversed with Cecilia (formerly) Sarkozy, who was visiting the shipyards with her husband Richard Attias and young art collectors who wanted to … Read More