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Stark Suburbs of Paris: Scenes from a Former Utopia

12 Nov

[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

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Dull gray concrete volumes stacked in irregular shapes stretch across the landscape just beyond Paris like a set from a dystopian film, dwarfing the mostly elderly residents who wander their halls. The ‘Babel-like’ housing estate known as Noisy-le-Grand began, in fact, as a utopian dream: a postmodern wonderland built between the ‘50s and ‘80s to welcome a migrant population of refugees from rural areas of France and other nations.

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Standing in stark visual opposition to the gleaming glass and steel of Paris’ more modern architecture and all of its centuries-old Gothic grandeur, Noisy-le-Grand was envisioned as a counterpoint to the boxy white creations of Le Corbusier, which the architects deemed unimaginative. Ricardo Bofill and Manuel Nunez-Yanowsky designed the Espaces Abraxas and Arénes de Picasso with a postmodern sensibility.

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But while the structures certainly aren’t lacking in imagination, ambition or scale, they are often – not unreasonably – compared to fortresses, prisons and industrial architecture. Unsurprisingly, the estate has been used as a set for everything from Terry Gilliam’s classic 1984 film ‘Brazil’ to ‘The Hunger Games: Mockingjay.’

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The fact that the residents of this strange suburb are almost all elderly reinforces the somewhat dystopian feel, especially when they’re photographed under vast concrete archways in this compelling photographic series by Laurent Kronental. Their humanity and the warmth and personality of their interior spaces contrast against the coldness of the architecture.

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Entitled ‘Souvenir d’un Futur,’ the series is the result of four years of visits. According to his artist statement, Kronental “felt a need to examine their living conditions and shed light over a sometimes-neglected generation. Exposing these unsung and underestimated suburban areas is a means to reveal the poetry of aging environments slowly vanishing, and with them, the memory of modernist utopia.”

[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

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Posted in Creativity

Sprawling Vision of the Past: American Suburbs From Above

06 Jul

[ By Delana in Art & Photography & Video. ]

cristoph gielen aerial suburban photographs

Suburbs are far older than most of us tend to realize, but when we talk about urban sprawl we most often think of the planned communities that popped up during the industrial revolution. Photographer Christoph Gielen spent seven years documenting some of these communities in America from a helicopter, creating a fascinating series that he calls Ciphers, which he published in a book of the same name.

urban sprawl seen from above

Seen from within, urban sprawl seems like little more than closely-built homes that all look the same. But there is a deeper meaning to these communities that is sometimes glossed over. They were built at the height of the country’s growth phase, when driving miles to work didn’t seem like a bother because gas prices were low and expected to stay that way.

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But the best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry, and eventually suburbs became more of a headache and an eyesore than the pleasant communities they were meant to be. A 45-minute commute between work and home became an extremely expensive proposition, but suburban homeowners were stuck with their “American dream” hoames. Today, these relics of a time gone by are still mostly inhabited, their residents still driving long distances each day.

cristoph gielen ciphers

The goal of Gielen’s project was to draw attention to the effect these communities have on the environment. The practice of building further and further away from city centers, and in turn creating the need to use cars to drive long distances, creates an environmental burden that he calls “fascinating and profoundly unsettling.” Regardless of your opinion of these far-flung planned communities, there is a certain sort of lovely aesthetic to the patterns and shapes formed by the streets, green spaces, and tiny box houses that make up the American suburb.

[ By Delana in Art & Photography & Video. ]

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Sandcastle Suburbs: Beach Buildings Form Fragile Sprawl

19 Jul

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

sand castle suburb

If castles of sand are ordinarily creative (if childish) works of artistic expression, then these are their opposite – boring and relentless repetition of identical houses inspired by postwar suburbia and deployed on an incongruous grid.

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This piece of Master Plan is (or rather: was) the first small and temporary installation of an ongoing series by Chad Wright (photography by Lynn Kloythanomsup of Architectural Black). The project is intended as a personal reflection on his own history as well as commentary on the American Dream in light of recent history, particularly the housing crisis. Much like market shocks (metaphorically) or the passage of time (literally), each incoming wave cracks and erodes the constituent buildings in a relentless yet unpredictable fashion.

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About the artist and how his history is intertwined with this work: “I was raised in Orange County—a sprawling suburb of Southern California built by disciples of Levittown. We lived in a tract house, a symbol of the American Dream, just like our neighbors. Dad, a realtor, and mom, a preschool teacher, met while working at JCPenneys in 1970. We spent our summers in Breezy Point, New York, at the yellow beach bungalow that my grandma Stella bought with war bonds, unknown to grandpa who was stationed in Iwo Jima soon after they eloped. As children, my big brother Christopher and I would build cities in the sand, beneath the bungalow’s slatted porch floorboards. Phase One [of Master Plan] focuses on the mass-produced tract house, re-examining it as symbol for the model American Dream.