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Paris, France
When the streets are wet the color slips into the sky
Dominique Perrault's French National Library is surprisingly shiny and vertical for a library- still in Paris but a good walk away from anywhere you would normally want to be. The actual library is located in a big box with an open, tree filled courtyard. Atop this box are four glass towers, all big "L"s, supposedly representing gigantic open books. Even though it was closed throughout my visit, the always open plaza was, well, open- allowing for as great an experience one can expect at a French library when you can't read a word of French.
More of Dominique Perrault's big bad library on the Seine. Closed (when I was there) but not forgotten, I am expecting that at some point I will still walk in its halls, stand in its public spaces, descend into its central forest and still not understand a damn word of any of those millions and millions of French books.
It's almost like its not there at all. Layers of glass, sometimes permeated by trees, protecting other layers of glass. Reflections, transparency, everything good about glass although I'm sure it's a bitch to clean. Inside are two levels of galleries with rotating exhibits as well as reflective views outside to other layers of glass. Designed by Jean Nouvel and located in a fine neighborhood near the Raspail Metro stop, it is one building that certainly does not photograph well at all.
Another picture of something that did not photograph well from the start. Impressive in person with an impressive little contemporary gallery inside (so much better than those self declared contemporary art museums in Cincinnati or Chicago), it is a building that finally fulfills the promise of glass.
Probably the greatest and most famous of all the buildings completed by Swiss architect Le Corbusier (take that Ronchamp!), Villa Savoye sits on a small, well protected field in a dense suburb, a good half hour train ride away from Chatelet on the (A) RER trains. Inside are three levels of what was designed as an extraordinary residence, complete with ramps and terraces and all those damn pilotis.
Inside or outside, again it's sometimes hard to tell. The actual house has some exhibits in the downstairs servant spaces as well as some furniture in one of the rooms, otherwise its open and available for any paying customer to wander, imagine and understand.
