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Paris, France
Get out of the city and into the sunshine
Not all of the Metro Station entrances are this involved. Many retain the original, Hector Guimard gate (like the one that has been trapped at the Museum of Modern Art in New York for as long as memory allows), others could pass for any city- simple doors in office buildings or holes in the ground. Thankfully a few still look like this but sadly not that many. This is the Porte Dauphine station, the end of the line (if you just got off a #2 line train), and off one of those Baron Haussmann radiating boulevards and within sight of that distant all present arc.
Ascending one of those hard-to-believe-it-really-exists Hector Guimard Metro stations. This is the Porte Dauphine station, the end of the (2) line, just two stops away from Charles de Gaulle Etoile, under that monster Arc (de Triomphe).
Bernard Tschumi's legendary red follies define Parc de la Villette, probably the most successful of Francois Mitterand's legendary Grand Projects that redefined Paris in time for their revolutionary bicentennial in 1992. Each of the red buildings is different but similar, each has a different purpose. Some are fast food restaurants, some are information booths, this one was closed (although an arcade when open). Between the follies is an undulating canopy, a few large scale museums, a canal, a playground or two as well as a popular neighborhood park.
One of the aforementioned red follies and omnipresent undulating canopies. This folly hosts some type of bad ass miniature golf course, undulating artificial turf to match that omnipresent undulating canopy.
The little red follies each do something else, although when I was there a lot of them seemed to be getting renovated. However some of them in these pictures are, well, empty- possibly a sign of a not terribly strong French economy.
The most clearly labeled image in the whole slideshow is this, the model on display of Christian de Portzamparc's La Cite de la Musique, conveniently located in a display window at Christian de Portzamparc's La Cite de la Musique. The complex is located at the far end of Parc de la Villette, or at least the far end if you entered via the Porte de la Villette Metro station.
Outside the Cite but still in Paris, this is Christian de Portzamparc's La Cite de la Musique bathed in an almost unforgivable shadow, yet still those awesome little Hershey's Kiss bollards still manage to please.
