I was by chance at Château de Sceaux with two hours to spare and noticed that the Pavilion for the Prefiguration of the Musée du Grand Siècle was open in the petit château, a ravishing house in the old part of town. So I knocked on the door and Etienne Faisant, a specialist of 17 th century architecture, who was recently … Read More
A day at the Garde Meuble de la Couronne with Agnès Walch
One of the events of the Spring was the opening of Hotel de la Marine on place de la Concorde with the refurbished apartments of the two intendants in charge of Louis XVIth’ Garde Meuble (furniture storage), Pierre Elisabeth de Fontanieu and Marc Antoine Thierry de Ville-d’Avray. One was a libertine, the other, a family man very close to the … Read More
Paris bridges glow at night, thanks to Gary Zuercher
Gary Zuercher moved to Paris for the only good reason there is: he fell in love with a French woman, Dominique, whom he met on a flight from Cancun to Mexico City. The book on the thirty five Parisian bridges on the Seine, “The Glow of Paris”, which he photographed at night over a period of five years, is the … Read More
Architect Bernard Desmoulin enters the Académie des Beaux arts
The name of Architects is often less known than their buildings and today at the Académie des Beaux Arts, both the newly installed candidate Bernard Desmoulin and the colleague who received him, Aymeric Zublena were unknown to me. Except that the latter is the author of Hôpital Européen Georges Pompidou and of Stade de France in Saint Denis, two major … Read More
Christo makes everyone smile at Arc de Triomphe
As the young Bulgarian architect Iva Stanisheva (who works as a mediator on the project) was telling me: “some people don’t understand the project, others love it, but no-one is indifferent”. She explained why some of the red ropes were not perfectly aligned “they are fixed with strong hooks on the structure of the Arc and respect the underlying sculptures”. … Read More
In Brussels, Fondation Boghossian is a true discovery
“Icons” is the theme chosen by Henri Loyrette for his very successful exhibition at Fondation Boghossian in Brussels. It is set in the magnificent art deco Villa Empain, built in 1930 by Louis Empain, age 22, on the avenue des Nations (now avenue Franklin Roosevelt) where all the embassies are settled. The house has gone through many hands from the … Read More
The reopening of La Samaritaine is a non event
I was not disappointed because I did not expect much. The new La Samaritaine is in a similar way as Le Bon Marché, a luxury store for famous brands with no spirit and no imagination, it is managed by the DFS group, duty free shopping. “Tout ça pour ça” as we say I French after more than 800 millions € … Read More
In Saint Quentin, there are many surprises!
The town of Saint Quentin, an hour and a half North East of Paris (70 minutes by train), is one of the places that I had wanted to visit for many years and I never managed the time to do so. It is famous for two things: the Musée Antoine Lécuyer with pastels by Maurice Quentin de La Tour, 1704-1788, and … Read More