Cool Paris

Musée Bourdelle presents an ambitious exposition devoted to Isadora Duncan, one of the sources of inspiration for Antoine Bourdelle. The exposition recreates the intellectual and artistic context of an epoch and celebrating this pioneer dancer. It traces the tumultuous life and career of Isadora Duncan through photographs, works of art and documents.  The exhibition concludes with an examination of the relationship between Isadora Duncan and Antoine Bourdelle and the works of art that it inspired.

Musée Bourdelle, 18, rue Antoine Bourdelle,75015 Paris,M° : Montparnasse – Bienvenüe / Falguière

Open from Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 6pm until March 14, 2010.

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In the Aerolineas Argentinas Magazine of Dec 2009 :

The sense of smell can stir-up potent memories. Certain aromas allow to relive an infinite array of events, as they transport us to different places and times where memories interact with imagination and fantasy.

Paris, apart from being an elegant city par excellence, is the capital of perfume. While there are thousands of ways to experience this unique place which combines flavors and fragances, it’s the city of Grasse where the finest aromas can be found.

But at Rue Scribe, near the Garnier Opéra House, in an old theater, a museum/boutique reveals infinite secrets and curiosities about the manufactering of fragances. Upon crossing through the doorway, one can admire all the distillation stages involved in the elaboration of the different aromas until discovering the marvelous collection of objects linked with perfume making.  Perfume as it’s known today became a liquid in the late XIV century after having originally been a solid.

With a familiar spirit and the hand crafted values that it represents, Fragonard has succeeded in crossing borders to make the sense of smell a uniquely pleasant experience. There are also free guided tours.

Fragonard, 9, Rue Scribe, 75009 Paris, M° Opéra

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David Britain writing for VINGT Paris

Although its location inside Forum des Halles is not the most desirable, Forum des Images is the gem of this underground maze. Nowhere else will you find such an enormously varied film agenda including 1920s silent film, contemporary art house cinema and everything in between. There is a strong emphasis on the French cinema tradition with regular screenings of films by the French masters of cinema such as Marcel Carné, Louis Malle, Jean Luc Godard and Jean Renoir.  They even offer the delightful ‘Menu Court’ – showings of short films at 1.15pm every day for €1 designed to fit into your lunch break.

However, Forum des Images is not just a great cinema. The frequency of master classes, cinema lessons and debates are what make it so unique to Paris. The master classes are open to anyone with a ticket and have included highly influential members of the film community such as Claude Chabrol and Gérard Depardieu. Forum’s biggest coup to date is the master class by Francis Ford Coppola. Fear not that tickets for this event were sold out in a few hours. Isabelle Hupert, star of some of the most astonishing French films of the last decade such as La Pianiste and Ma Mère, will also be taking a master class .

If you’re feeling especially invigorated by this grand array of cinematic education then you can even hop next door to the Bibliotèque de Cinéma François Truffaut and have a look at some of the 17,000 books about film.

Forum des Images , 101 Porte Berger, 75001 Paris, M° Les Halles – Châtelet

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Anna Bromwich writing for VINGT Paris

Perched on Quai D’Austerlitz on the old industrial banks of the Seine is a 21st century Emerald City. The Cité de la Mode et du Design is a converted storehouse wrapped in a vibrant green, wavy skin that was designed to echo the murky Seine running beside it.

Cité de la Mode is due to open in early 2010 and the public should soon be able to visit the complex of boutiques, restaurants and exhibition spaces all pertaining to the theme of fashion and design.  The building already plays host to the post-graduate fashion design and management school l’Institut de la Mode. However, it is the Cité’s adventurous architecture which is the greatest testament to its proposed use.

Twenty years ago this part of town was a run down industrial zone. Stretching from Gare d’Austerlitz to Boulevard Général Jean-Simon, a visit to this corner of the 13th arrondissement was easily bypassed. Since 1991 the area has been subject to a massive urban redevelopment plan, which has seen the district renamed to ‘Paris Rive Gauche’.  Although the district centralizes the 24 storey Bibliothéque Nationale de France, it appears that architecturally speaking, the jewel in the crown may in fact be the Cité de la Mode et du Design.

Franco-Kiwi duo Dominique Jakob et Brendan MacFarlane, who won the contract in an open competition, took the existing 1907 warehouse structure and overlaid a web-like network of green-painted steel, screen-printed glass and wooden decking which form walkways along the river and lead to a grassy landscaped rooftop.
The architects have nicknamed this concept the ‘Plug-in’: plugging a new structure and concept into the old, thereby manipulating its form and use. The decision to retain the original building, which was not an obligation, has given a contemporary project a sense of history in the midst of recent development, which has changed the landscape dramatically.

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