I recently discovered the online digital archives of several French newspapers, with fully-consultable editions stretching back to the 19th century. After browsing through several editions of Le...
The classic Haussmannian structure was built according to very strict rules. It should be six stories tall and no more than 20 metres high, and have eaves with a 45° incline, principally co...
I have recently developed something of an obsession with Courbevoie on the Paris city limits, an archetype of the rapidly changing suburban town. There is something completely tangible abou...
On the website of the Village Royal, a private, pedestrianised street near the Place de la Madeleine, the location is described as prestigeux village au coeur de Paris. Walking along i...
French architect Guillaume Gillet would have been 100 this year, and to celebrate this anniversary an exhibition has been organised in Royan, home of his one true masterpiece, the Notr...
A temporary installation by an artist friend at the Palais dIéna gave me the opportunity to explore the often difficult to access interior of Auguste Perrets masterpiece.As part of the curr...
For the last two years, the view from my window has been of an extra-large gorilla painted by urban artist Zoo Project. Since the beginning of the year, the beast has slowly start...
The Muséum national d’histoire naturelle has launched its annual publicity drive around its participative event, Vigie Nature, which encourages people to rediscover nature in their immediate sur...
It is a truism to say that Paris is a city designed for pedestrians, but what is the experience for those who have trouble walking? Is it still possible to be a flâneur if physical problems prev...
In 1860, the city of Paris extended its boundaries by annexing eleven surrounding communities. Only one of these, Charonne, has truly kept the soul of a village. Anyone who has visited Pari...
In two months time, the impressive municipal stadium at Courbevoie will be completely demolished. Requiem for a building that no-one seems to care about.In the shadow of the La Defense...
Between numbers 1 and 3 of the Rue Chapon in the 3rd arrondissement stands a door numbered 1 Bis. It looks much like any other door in the street, but there is one major difference -&n...
In the 92nd division of the Père Lachaise cemetery lies the tomb of Victor Noir, one of its most well-known curiosities. The bronze sculpture, laying flat in position of death, fascinates and amuses ...
It is said that nature abhors a vacuum, but one could also say that cities abhor a blank wall. Rather than leave walls for what they are, such spaces are often filled with a vast trompe loeil&nb...
||PART OF A TWIN FEATURE PUBLISHED WITH INVISIBLE BORDEAUX||As Invisible Bordeaux has already told us, Presidential candidate Mitt Romney remembers his 30-month stint in France as a Mormon missionary...
Outside any consideration of the artistic merits of street art, what it does always give you is the pulse of a city. Faces may be closed and tongues tied, but the creations on the walls wil...
There are three things that surprise at the Square Marie Trintignant; it is open 24 hours a day, there are more things you cant do than you can do, and it is (almost) an entirely natural environ...
Pantin, a small town on the Paris city limits twinned somewhat improbably with Moscow, is an ideal site for an urban promenade, thanks mostly to the canal that runs through it and a spectacular indus...
London has its Postman’s Park, where individual acts of (tragic) heroism are remembered, but you have to look hard to find anything similar in Paris.In the 9th arrondissement though there is one suc...
All cities have their secrets, and Paris is no exception. It has its secret places too, but these are not deep underground or hidden behind high walls. The best way to hide a building in a city it se...
This rather strange looking object, on the very limits of the city, is an ‘avertisseur de Police’. Before telephones were widely installed across Paris, these machines allowed witnesses to crimes or ...
On December 11th, a group of mayors from Frances Auvergne region organised a protest in Paris against the transfer of their trains from the Gare de Lyon to the Gare de Bercy. Smartly dressed and...
Flicking swiftly through hundreds of vintage Paris postcards at a fair recently, my finger was stopped dead by a singularly melancholic picture. Paris is a city that people boast of visitin...
I was recently sent a review copy of ‘The Discovery of Jeanne Baret’ by Glynis Ridley, a fascinating investigation of the life of the first woman to circumnavigate the globe. The story is made even m...
Reader Karen was walking along the coulée verte, the disused railway line in the 12th arrondissement, and spotted a building that caught her attention. She sent me a picture, simply stating that she ...
The Paris Face Cachée event was seemingly such a good idea that the bookings website crashed on day of launch, and all 10,000 places available were snapped up within 48 hours. However, those who were...
A new initiative in Paris aims to show both visitors and locals alike a hidden side of one of the most well-known cities in the world. Paris Face Cachée, a weekend long event being held on Febru...
Its little more than a wasteland, a concrete patch between the end of a garden and the beginning of a car park, and yet it has become the scene of a bitter dispute. The Socialist-run city council wan...
Few places around Paris have seen as much demolition and construction as Levallois in recent years. The previously working-class town, considered once to be suitably welcoming by arch-revolutionary L...
As seems to be traditional at this time of year, here is yet another list. Rather than just simply present the top 5 posts though, I have also added a few notes to explain why I picked the subject, w...
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