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AMO – the think tank counterpart to OMA – extensively works with fashion labels. They've designed stores and runways for brands like Prada and Miu Miu for years, crafting (often) conceptually-charged, and (always) visually-punchy environments to consume the latest and greatest sartorial... View full entry
Paris’s car-free day was not without controversy, not least because it wasn’t a totally carless day and was limited to only around one-third of the city. After a standoff with police, authorities were only able to make car-free certain parts of the city centre, stretching between Bastille and the Champs Elysées, and the outer Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes, and only between 11am and 6pm. In the rest of the city, cars were allowed but at 20km an hour. — The Guardian
Paris, which had a mostly car-free day on Sunday, September 27th, experienced smog-free blue skies and a largely smiling populace, but it's not the first major metropolis to sort of go pedestrian. During a July weekend in 2011, famously car-centric Los Angeles shut down one of its main transit... View full entry
Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo has suggested the area around the Tour Montparnasse skyscraper could become the Times Square of the French capital. Now its owners plan to try and make that dream come true. [...]
The owners of the 59-storey building are due to launch an international architecture competition next year to revamp the brown tower block and the shopping mall at its base with a major makeover that could cost up to €700 million.
— thelocal.fr
Related on Archinect:Top architects defend some of the most hated buildings in the worldParis approves its first skyscraper of the 21st centuryMVRDV approved to redesign the '70s Vandamme Nord block in Montparnasse, Paris View full entry
After imposing taxes on units in Amsterdam, Portland, Oregon, San Francisco and elsewhere, “home-sharing” facilitator Airbnb will now begin collecting taxes in Paris, the company’s biggest market.
Collection officially begins October 1st and some see the move as Airbnb’s attempt at playing nice with city regulators. Venture Beat connects the change to Uber’s troubles in Paris, where the ride service company fought new regulation policies.
— nextcity.org
Our episode this week revolves around Paris – city of lights, riots, artists and cheese-shaped skyscrapers (or at least, those are the bits were talking about). As part of a nationwide strike against UberPop, the cheapest Uber-affiliate in France, taxi drivers in Paris launched a riotous... View full entry
Lunch is an important ritual in his workday, a discussion lubricated by copious amounts of wine. Often, it’s the first time his staff gets to see him, since he spends mornings in solitude. “I wake up, perform my little ablutions, then get back into bed with my eye mask on and my earplugs in, and I work. I imagine. I visualize. I create a film in my head.” — nymag.com
The Grand Monsieur of French architecture talks openly to New York magazine's Justin Davidson about current projects — like the Louvre Abu Dhabi, National Museum of Qatar, National Art Museum of China, and the 53 West 53rd Street "MoMA Tower" in New York — as well as the immense... View full entry
[Paris] has not built a modern skyscraper since the 1970s, when the 231-metre tall Tour Montparnasse sprung up – much to the horror of the locals, many of whom still consider it an eyesore. — The Independent
In a narrow vote, the city of lights approved Herzog & de Meuron's Tour Triangle, a 42-story skyscraper that will be the tallest building to be built in Paris since the 1970s. In 2010, the city voted to remove its multi-decade-long height restrictions of 36 meters on new buildings, which were... View full entry
Construction has begun on the future Centre Européen du Judaïsme (European Centre of Judaism) in the 17th arrondissement of Paris [...].
The planned cost of the project is €10m, with €2.7m in state and regional public funding, and it is due to be completed in spring 2017. Covering 4,900 sq. m over eight floors, the Jewish centre will include a synagogue, library, theatre and classrooms. The new building has been designed by the local architects Bruno Fléchet and Stéphane Maupin [...].
— The Art Newspaper
Uber France CEO Thibaud Simphal and Uber Europe GM Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty were both taken into custody today in Paris [...]
The two executives were charged with two different allegations. First, according to them, Uber is running illegal taxi operations. Uber has been struggling with this charge in many countries, starting with the U.S. Second, the police said that Uber France is concealing digital documents...
— Tech Crunch
After protests last week turned violent, French authorities have detained two executives of the ride-sharing company Uber, although officials stated that they were brought into custody on charges unrelated to the protests. Uber is facing ferocious criticism in France, with taxi-drivers complaining... View full entry
French taxi drivers pulled out the throttle in an all-out confrontation with the ultra-cheap Uber car service Thursday, smashing livery cars, setting tires ablaze and blocking traffic during a nationwide strike that caught tourists and celebrities alike in the mayhem. — washingtonpost.com
Parisian taxi drivers have taken to the streets, smashing cars and burning tires to protest UberPop, a budget iteration of the car-sharing service akin to UberX in the States. Traffic came to a stop in the French capital, with reports of stranded travelers walking along the highway with luggage... View full entry
Before yesterday's announcement that Moreau Kusunoki Architectes had won the highly contentious and big-budget Guggenheim Helsinki competition, the firm wasn't much used to the spotlight. Querying Google Trends for "Moreau Kusunoki" preceding the Guggenheim news, the firm barely blips twice since... View full entry
“Money is not an issue here” is the motto that leaps out at you in both the Prada and Vuitton Foundation museums, although in Paris it is thrown into high relief on the building’s facade by the almost vulgar silver logo of Louis Vuitton—the star company in the LVMH group. — The Art Newspaper
Vancouver architect Michael Green is proposing to alter the iconic Parisian skyline — by building the world's tallest wooden building...'Just as Gustave Eiffel shattered our conception of what was possible a century and a half ago, this project can push the envelope of wood innovation with France in the forefront,' said Green in a press release. — cbc.ca
More about the project here.More:France Mandates "Green Roofs" for all new buildingsA New Use for the Eiffel TowerVancouver is the latest city to announce 100% green energy goalsCanadian Wood Council pushes for more wood architecture excellence in the latest Wood Design Awards2014 was the tallest... View full entry
The Pompidou Centre in Paris has hit back at critics who say its Le Corbusier exhibition, which opened to the public yesterday, 29 April, glosses over recent accusations that the Swiss-born French architect was a militant fascist with links to the Vichy regime.
A spokeswoman for the Pompidou says the exhibition does not refer to Le Corbusier’s fascist past because “it’s about the proportions of the human body, which are present in his architecture and painting. [...]”
— The Art Newspaper
Previously: Le Corbusier "militant fascist" claims overshadow 50th death anniversary View full entry
France's best-known 20th century architect, Le Corbusier, was a "militant fascist" who was far more anti-Semitic and a fan of Hitler than previously thought, two new books reveal.
[...] the latest, far more damning, revelations have shocked admirers and threaten to cast a shadow over commemorations of the 50th anniversary of his death. [...]
"Hitler can crown his life with a great work: the planned layout of Europe."
— telegraph.co.uk
