Paris and Brutalism

Do you love concrete as much as I do?

I had a dramatic plot twist to a recent trip to Paris: the discovery of a live WW2 bomb on the tracks of the Eurostar line, meaning that all trains were cancelled and my three-day trip had to be extended by a day! I struggled through valiantly. In fact, I bit the hand off Paris. I’d already managed one daytrip out to Ivry-sur-Seine gazing at Brutalist concrete marvels; now I could have a second, blinding my eyes with the beauties in Créteil. Every cloud!

Day 1: Ivry-sur-Seine

Pastry fortifications - mandatory before you go anywhere:

Then, a 30 minute metro ride to Ivry-sur-Seine, to view these beauties:

My wing-woman Zoe and I were in awe of how the sunshine bounced off these buildings; little islands rising up out of the metropolis, bathed in pockets of light, jutting against the deep blue sky. For sure, if it had been raining and the skies had been leaden, this might not have looked so appealing!

Next, we scurried to some flats which had all sorts of vertiginous angles going on:

It actually felt thrilling to be so close to such lurching and crazed angles, all tilts and triangles, sharpness and hefty solidity. After poring over so much architectural detail, a cake stop was needed:

Left: éclair au café. Right: Paris-Brest. The éclair had a faint instant coffee flavour; the Paris-Brest tasted strangely of apricot kernels, not of hazelnut. But not too shabby!

More apartments in Ivry - note the star-shaped rooftop gardens:

Day 2: Créteil

Créteil is another suburb in the South East banlieue of Paris. You wander for about 10 minutes from the métro station through a university campus filled with unremarkable concrete buildings to then be thoroughly startled by ‘Les Choux de Créteil’:

Part concrete organic mushroom, part spaceship, these flats took my breath away. They are totally nuts. A local told us that French architecture students from all over the country come to get inspiration from these structures. Fifty percent social housing to 50% private flats, one of these blocks is a student halls of residence. Imagine it!!! We tried to get inside one, but it was securely locked and a disapproving lady walking past gave us a cold stare.

Nothing could quite match ‘Les Choux’, but the Créteil courts of justice gave it some good effort - looking like something menacing from the film ‘The Hunger Games’:

Next time, I’ll have to check out the suburb of Noisy-le-Grand where The Hunger Games was actually filmed…