Tag: Paris

Car-Free Paris: French Capital Bans Motor Vehicles for 1 Day

[ By WebUrbanist in Culture & History & Travel. ]

For a single day next month, locals and visitors will be able to experience Paris without motorized traffic, giving the city over to pedestrians and bikers. Free of traffic congestion, noise pollution and vehicle emissions, the Day Without Cars will transform the physical and auditory landscape, enabling views and revealing ambient sounds ordinarily drowned out by the urban cacophony on September 27th.

Timed to coincide with a United Nations climate conference and European Mobility Week, the move is partially a display of possibilities for car-free cities as well as a statement about the environment. The 1st through 7th, 10th and 11th arrondissements (city sections) will all participate; monuments and gathering spaces such as the Champs Élysées, the Bastille, and the Eiffel Tower are included as well.

Other metropolitan areas around the world including Montreal, Bogota, Mexico City and Ho Chi Minh City are following France’s lead and instituting similar vehicular restrictions to various degrees. In such cities, photographers will be able to stand in the streets, capturing unique shots of urban architecture and infrastructure without the risk of being run over. Facing increased traffic, cities like London and Los Angeles are already considering ways in which to permanently reduce congestion and give over areas to mass transit, cyclists and pedestrians.

Some cities have longer-term visions for a car-free future as well. In China, plans and budgets have been established for a car-free city built from scratch. In Abu Dhabi, a car-free, self-sufficient city is also in the works, though some question its feasibility. Meanwhile, Hamburg has firmly committed to a 20-year plan to eliminate cars, keeping routes for public transportation and emergency vehicles but otherwise handing city streets over to paths and trails for walkers and bikers.

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Car-Free City: Hamburg Announces Audacious 20-Year Plan

Germany may be known for its green political party and sustainable energy focus, but this daring plan to eliminate the need for automobiles entirely across the …
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London Approves Europe’s First City-Spanning Bike Superhighway

Catering to some of the 170,000 cyclists that ride across London every day, this segregated bicycle lane will stretch from west to east, pass through the heart …
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Little People in Paris: 5 Tiny Street Art Scenes by Slinkachu

The tiny figures of Slinkachu play out surreal scenarios ranging from dramatic to comedic, all against the backdrop of life-sized props that seem giant by …
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[ By WebUrbanist in Culture & History & Travel. ]

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WebUrbanist

August 31, 2015
Triangle Tower Approved: First New Paris Skyscraper in 42 Years

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

At nearly 600 feet (180 meters) tall, this structure was narrowly granted permission to be the first skyscraper to grace the Parisian skyline in nearly half a century. Designed by Herzog & De Meuron, the Tour Triangle will be the third tallest building in the city, shorter only than one other skyscraper and the Eiffel Tower.

The triangular tower (already nicknamed simply ‘Triangle’) is slightly pyramidal in shape, tapering toward the top on all sides but most dramatically along two of its facades. An affair of steel and glass, it is starkly modern with respect to its neighboring buildings. Perhaps like the Eiffel Tower, originally widely hated, or the Centre Pompidou, a structurally-inverted museum, it can become an icon within the city over time.

Despite being located at 1 Place de la Porte de Versailles, right on the edge of the central ring road surrounding the innermost part of the city (and arguably reinforcing a key nexus point), critics are concerned about the building overshadowing the surrounding urban landscape. The measure to approve its construction barely passed.

Advocates are quick to point out that the building will create thousands of jobs both as it is constructed and once it is completed, as well as creating much-needed residential and office space in the city. For decades, the city limited new structures to around 100 feet, curbing development inside the city limits and forcing developers into suburban spaces.

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Tower with a Twist: Very Top-Heavy Vancouver Skyscraper

This is what creative design is all about: taking a familiar typology and turning (or twisting) it around … not merely to show off something new and unique.
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Crowdfunded Skyscraper: Record-Breaking Tower in Bogotá

With over $ 200 million from more than 3,500 supporters, the world’s largest crowdfunding campaign has generated the means to create the highest …
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Error of Omission: 50-Floor Skyscraper Lacking an Elevator

Twin towers raising up the existing skyline and joined at the top – these were supposed to be a sign of recovery in a city and country ravaged by the …
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[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

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WebUrbanist

July 3, 2015
Playing with Perspective in Paris: New Optical Illusion Art

[ By Steph in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

Two-dimensional shapes seem to hover weightlessly in space like a projection, but step slightly to your right or left and the whole image falls apart, becoming a chaotic assemblage of lines painted onto various surfaces in a room. Swiss painter Felice Varini has been transforming public spaces with his single-vantage-point illusions since 1978, and now he’s brought them to the Grande halle de la Villette in Paris’ Parc de lab Villette.

Varian invites us to look at the spaces around us in a new way, taking a closer look at the physicality of the world we have constructed around us through his somewhat disorienting optical illusions.

The spaces themselves are Varian’s true media, more so than the paint. Even when certain shapes and motifs are repeated, the result is different every time. “My work evolves in relation to spaces that I am in contact with,” he says.

The installations will be up through September 13th, 2015, and guided tours are available.

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Not Photoshopped: New Optical Illusions by Felice Varini

Artist Felice Varini creates large-scale anamorphic illusions on urban surfaces, which only come together when viewed from a certain perspective.
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Deceptive Dimensions: Illusion Street Art Creates 3D Portals

At first glance it looks as if thin layers of these walls have been slowly torn away in concentric shapes, leading deeper and deeper into the spaces on the …
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Perspective Puzzle: Anamorphic Art in the Toronto Subway

Scribbled stairs, clocks and umbrellas seemingly float in mid-air in the Bayview Toronto subway station in an anamorphic public art installation.
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[ By Steph in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

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WebUrbanist

April 25, 2015
Playful in Paris: Life-Sized Interactive Street Art

[ By Steph in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

Everyday objects and imperfections in the urban surfaces of Paris become part of strange and unexpected scenes as French artist Levalet incorporates them into life-sized street art. A bull head sculpture becomes a minotaur, map in hand; a figure with a jackhammer goes to work on a damaged section of wall; a display box for advertisements is transformed into an x-ray machine.

Known by day as an art teacher named Charles Leval, the artist creates humorous scenes that interact with idiosyncrasies and often-unnoticed details in the fabric of the city.

The life-sized wheat paste posters take advantage of everything from pipes and spigots to false windows and concrete recesses.

Levalet walks around the city looking for the ideal spots for his work, takes measurements and creates the paste-ups at home before returning to his chosen locations and installing the work.

He told Street Art News that he considers all of the individual scenes to be part of a larger frame, “where I try to define a cosmology of a parallel world.”

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Interactive Urbanism: 5 Simple Street Art Projects

These five street art projects, including ‘Before I Die’, invite participants to alter, comment upon or ponder their urban surroundings in new ways.
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Cocaine Skull: Life-Sized Sculpture Made of Street Drugs

A pile of street cocaine mixed with gelatin is sculpted into a life-sized replica of a human skull in ‘Ecce Animal,’ a statement on …
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Marvelous Muralist Makes Giant-Sized Street Art Illusions

Madrid-based street artist Sam3 creates massive murals covering entire multi-story buildings in cities like Vienna, Valencia, Quito, Berlin and Atlanta.
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[ By Steph in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

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WebUrbanist

February 20, 2015
Tape Tunnels: Crawl Inside a Human-Sized Spiderweb in Paris

[ By Steph in Drawing & Digital. ]

Stretching from one end of the Palais de Tokyo gallery in Paris to the other, these strange translucent tunnels look like human-sized versions of the funnel-shaped webs of grass spiders. Instead of helplessly trapped insects, you’ll find people crawling around inside, their weight supported by nothing more than layer after layer of sticky tape and plastic.

Tape Paris is the latest interactive art installation by Croatian-Austrian design collective Numen/For Use, described as a “stretched biomorphic skin” suspended halfway between the floor and ceiling of the gallery’s main hall. The designers see it as a “site specific, parasitical structure invading an arbitrary location.”

Visitors are invited to climb inside, navigating tunnels that vary in height to enable standing at some points but require crawling at others. Those inside can gaze down at the hazy shapes of onlookers below. The basis of the installation is criss-crossed Scotch tape which is reinforced on the outside with an elastic plastic sheeting.

In addition to other tape structures, Numen/For Use is known for inhabitable string and net installations including a gridded ‘social sculpture’ modeled after dadaist collages and suspended nets inside a massive inflatable bubble forming a sort of adult-sized bounce house.

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Livable Packing Tape Web Installation Worthy of Spiderman

It looks like the work of some fictional spider from hell, but this art installation by design collective For Use/Numen is actually made from packing tape.
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Place Vendome in Paris Gets Giant Bird Nest Tree Huts

Upon the centuries-old architecture of Place Vendome in Paris, nest-like structures of head-scratching proportions have appeared; messy wooden lean-to huts …
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Duct Tape or Duck Tape? 11 Intricate Tape Art Designs

People always joke about the many uses of duct tape, but few take its use as a material as seriously as these diehard duct tape designers.
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[ By Steph in Drawing & Digital. ]

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WebUrbanist

November 25, 2014
In photos: ‘Paris in the Springtime’

‘Paris in the Springtime’ is a new photography exhibition at the Beetles+Huxley gallery in London featuring notable photographers such as André Kertész, Robert Doisneau, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Willy Ronis and Elliott Erwitt. These classic black and white images are some of the scenes that have defined Paris’ romantic street life cliché found in modern pop culture. The collection of mid-twentieth century photos are on display from April 7 – May 3. See gallery

News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

April 20, 2014
Little People in Paris: 5 Tiny Street Art Scenes by Slinkachu

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

The tiny figures of Slinkachu play out surreal scenarios ranging from dramatic to comedic, all against the backdrop of life-sized props that seem giant by comparison. His latest set of little plays took place on the streets of Paris.

His Little People works hide in plain sight, almost too small to see unless spotted out of the corner of one’s eye. He was invited to France for “ReAct Paris, a conference organised by the European Parliament to tackle the problems of unemployment in Europe, particularly youth unemployment, which in some parts of Europe stand close to a miserable 30%.”

Fitting the theme, most of his installations this time around featured people hard at work, from miniature electricians to tiny scientists, group meetings around graphs and workers arranged on a horizontal I-beam (reenacting a classic New York City Photograph).

Previous Slinkachu series, like the Little People of London, has also been seen in galleries and on the streets of other major cities from New York to Beijing. His subjects often interact with everyday detritus in curious ways, finding their on way to work with whatever they encounter a local scale.

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Miniature City Scenes: 21 of Slinkachu’s Tiny Art Installations

Slinkachu is a UK-based artist who creates tiny scenes on city streets. He photographs each scene and then leaves it to be discovered.
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Little People of London: Miniature Urban Street Art Images

Wonderfully creative urban street art. These photographs, taken around town in London and even shown in galleries, are just a small portion of the work.
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Facing the Arts: Playful Urban Wall Art in Streets of Paris

All around the streets of Paris, a familiar face is seen. It floats in tourist spots, adorns mailboxes, greets diners at sidewalk cafes. Who is behind the mask?
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[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

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WebUrbanist

November 12, 2013
11 November, 2013 – Paris Photo Show

Edmund Ronald is a consultant to the photographic industry and a regular contributor to this site. He visited the Paris Photo show this past weekend and now provides us with his report.

Today’s Home Page photo was taken during a shoot in Norway with Bjørn Rorslett. Bjørn is the subject of our latest video interview. See the November 9 entry below.

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The Luminous Landscape – What’s New

November 11, 2013
21 September, 2013 – Final Instalment of Olympus OM-D E-M1 Field Report from Paris

The week is up, and my trip to Paris and testing of the new Olympus OM-D E-M1 has drawn to a close.

The full report is now online.

"Having been to Antarctica with Michael and Kevin, I would say after having traveled the world and shot nearly my entire life as an exhibiting photographer, it was one of my highlights in my life and I talk about it, all the time. The images and experience of seeing something visionary and nearly extinct from the world, to see and experience the wildlife and scenery that does not fear humans is amazing. The images I shot there won me two Smithsonian awards and nearly 18 other international awards". – Tim Wolcott

Find Out More Now
These Expeditions Will Sell Out Quickly. They Always Do

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The Luminous Landscape – What’s New

September 21, 2013
16 September, 2013 – Olympus OM-D E-M1 Field Report from Paris

Micro Four Thirds is heating up. Panasonic’s GX7 has a lot of people excited, but last week Olympus announced the OM-D E-M1, its latest flagship camera.

I have received a review sample, just prior to my leaving for a week-long vacation in Paris, France. The E-M1 will therefore be the subject of a daily blog here on this site. Check in every day for updates.

"Having been to Antarctica with Michael and Kevin, I would say after having traveled the world and shot nearly my entire life as an exhibiting photographer, it was one of my highlights in my life and I talk about it, all the time. The images and experience of seeing something visionary and nearly extinct from the world, to see and experience the wildlife and scenery that does not fear humans is amazing. The images I shot there won me two Smithsonian awards and nearly 18 other international awards". – Tim Wolcott

Find Out More Now
These Expeditions Will Sell Out Quickly. They Always Do

…
The Luminous Landscape – What’s New

September 16, 2013