12.17.2009

les halles



les halles





before les halles,
the "belly of paris"
was torn down



for 800 years
les halles was the
central wholesale
market of paris

 

brewing revolution
with its pungent cheeses,
loitering thieves, lively cafés
and jungle of steel arcades.


"sending the blood of life
through every vein of the city"

 emile zola 

6 comments:

The romantic query letter and the happy-ever-after said...

Oh the delight of going to market and then to consume in sheer delight.
Warmest regards,
Simone.

cookie said...

beautiful photos

xo

Sarah J said...

your blog is wonderful!
:)

Eric said...

The wine carried by one of those "forts des Halles" is lovely. Romantic.

Paris is a movable feast.

Narwhal said...

The sad truth is that the markets were closed because it was an unhygienic confluence which caused ever-increasing vehicular congestion throughout the city (as agricultural production spread farther and farther form the city center). Paris died at the end of the 19th century. Modernism's last gasp at Grandes Projects was to swipe away the vacated husk of Les Halles to a clean tabula rasa and literally pave the way for an underground RER transportation hub. Then the sad joke of postmodern architecture got a hold of it and decided to bury the commerce underground, literally transforming the "belly of Paris" the "underbelly". Les Halles is still the center of popular commerce in Paris. It's the lifesucking bridge-and-tunnel suburb crowd that bummers the bobo nimby intelligenstia because the area is just not "old-timey" like they knew it in their youth. The above-ground parceled presence of architecture made the place. Check out Rem's defunct provocative plan to revitalize the area. It's informed by the way the marche structures organized the space that once existed above ground. THAT would have been something. When you're there you can see the streets bulge and feel and hear the ground swell with trains and living-dead/buried-alive commerce that is begging to be unearthed.

Yours truly,
Debbie Downer

Colorado Photos said...

Wow! Amazing photos..
Fantastic blog..