ROYAL COMMUTEMENT

You are now enabled to take the royal treatment, en route to Versailles. A service provided by the French Railways SCNF.
Bertrand Gosselin of the French state rail company, says the idea for the trains, which began running in May, came up in a joint meeting between officials from the palace and the rail line that serves it.
"We decided to make something different," Gosselin says. "Why not make something inside the trains to be already in Versailles when you take your train in Paris?"

Train Cars Transformed...

The rail cars are decorated in seven different motifs reflecting different areas of the Palace at Versailles — including the famous Hall of Mirrors, the queen's bedroom, the lavish gardens of Marie Antoinette's estate, the library of Louis XVI, the decor of a royal carriage and the peristyle of the Grand Trianon, which Gosselin notes was a private room where the king could have "some relations with women." [text from this blog]

Here are som more pics...

PENIQUE FOR MARTIN MARGIELA

Maison Martin Margiela as amazing as ever, surprised us with their Spring-Summer 2013 Decor Installation at Hotel Salomon de Rothschild, Paris. Look at this film.

What the men of Penique Productions are preparing is for a long time unclear, until... 

Making-of Maison Martin Margiela's Spring-Summer 2013 Decor Installation at Hotel Salomon de Rothschild, September 28th 2012.

Decor Installation: Penique Productions
Production: Eyesight 
Music: Michel Gaubert
© Maison Martin Margiela / Videopolis - September 2012
One of the projects they did, El Claustro can be found here.
Norte Centro Histórico, 
Querétaro, México
Art Direction: Maison Martin Margiela

Penique Production
Penique Productions seems to have a lot of experience is doing "Internal Blow-ups". On their website are several examples. Look here.

CutOutFest 2011 Size: 10m x 10m x 11m

Museo de la Ciudad

The film of the making of El Claustro

PARIS - LE MONSTRE DE MORETTI

Good news: The Monster of Moretti is back to visit.


The 'Monstre' is located in the bowels of La Defense, it is a sculpture and installation by Raymond Moretti. he built it in the studio that he lives in the brand new architectural 'monster' La Defense, possessed.
Les Journées du Patrimoine [guardian of the Parisian heritage] reopened the workshop and living space by Raymond Moretti, abandoned since 2005, the year of the death of its creator.

Right the chimney of the 'Monster'

Before 2005, the installation was open to the public every day

Moretti stond bekend om als ontwerper van posters

The installation seen from the balcony
(for security reasons you can not descend)
The shadows on the walls are painted

Parts are scattered on the ground

A walk in a theatrical setting

Subscribe to a visit of the machinery

Pictures made by the visitors, who to their surprise were guided as a group of six, by an expert on the history of the business district, offering everything some very passionate commentary.
More information in the blog article Condition Venus.

GARDENING [4] WIRTZ

The Belgian landscape architects Jacques and his sons Martin and Peter have designed some of the most beautiful gardens in Europe. I love their dramatic command of space and strong sculptural forms, their work combines a modernist aesthetic with a respect for tradition and the spirit of place. At the family home in Schoten, near Antwerp, a former gardener's cottage attached to an eighteenth-century estate, they have created in their private garden a laboratory for experiment on an intimate scale. 

I came across them because of the work they did for the gardens of the Louvre around the Arc Du Petit Carrousel. The use of hedges and the playfull walks you can make, enjoying the height differences and views, make it worth a visit. Well everybody visiting passes through anyway.

It's hard to find good photos of what I'm talking about. Behind the Maillols you can see the garden, but you cannot look inside. But once you are there you should walk through. 


A cute film on the Maillol statues, with more Wirtz in the background


Finally the Wirtz website

CLOCHARDS BIEN OUTILLé / IKEA

The making of the assembling of IKEA flats in Paris subway! The apartment in the Paris metro station Auber, set to present solutionsto small areas of development proposed IKEA will be from 9 to 14 January 2012 the site of a single operation.For 6 days, 5 housemates will live in this apartment of 54m2 in the eyes of all users of Auber. A daily videosummary of their adventures will be posted on Youtube.

YSL

I will always be fascinated by YSL. His rise and, almost yearly but never actually, fall...
His master craftmanship never wavered. I found this endearing film on Another Magazine.

LE CORBU A PARIS

Maison LaRoche-Jeanneret (1923-25)

Some years ago, I had the chance to visit Le Corbusier's works done between 1959-1968 at Firminy: the Maison de la Culture, the stadium, the recently completed church - and his Unité d'Habitation. I will publish some of my pics one day.
The World Of Interiors [jan 2011] gives us the chance to see more of his earlier projects in Paris and vicinity: Maison LaRoche-Jeanneret (1923-25), designed by Corbu. Enjoy the sculptural forms, playing with light, framing and especially COLOUR!
Buildings or sculptures; paintings or rooms/spaces; are they spaces meant for living or observing?



Maison LaRoche, interior restored 2009 by Agence Pierre-Antoine Gatier. Note gray color of radiators; this is the original color as determined by paint analysis.

 Maison LaRoche, interior restored 2009 by Agence Pierre-Antoine Gatier

 A glance at the past....


 To see how and where, visit the Fondation Corbusier.

ABOUT DANCE [2] SWAN LAKE [opera Bastille]

Paris L'Opera Bastille reeditioned Rudolph Nureyev's Lac des Cygnes [Swan Lake] on tchaikovsky's magnificent score. This clip gives a nice overview of the final scene, where the sorcerer / black swan comes for Odette, the princess turned swan.




Swan Lake, based on an old Russian fairytale has seen quite some choreographic developments since it's 19th century premier.

Read it's history on wikipedia
Or click for dozens of other exerpts on YouTube

THINK INTO THE BOX

The Parisian architect Stéphane Malka turned an empty room into a gorgeous minimalist landscape by filling it with the humblest of humble objects, the cardboard box.

 

 

 

The Parisian architect Stéphane Malka turned an empty room into a gorgeous minimalist landscape by filling it with the humblest of humble objects, the cardboard box.
The installation, Rue Sans Frontieres (No Limits in the Streets), was made up of hundreds of boxes painted semi-gloss white, then glued together and thrown up around 2,045-square-foot gallery in Moscow. Like a happy Cubist explosion, they littered the walls, the floor, and the ceiling. It's what you might've gotten had you put Picasso and Kengo Kuma in a Mail Boxes Etc. together.

The exhibit was designed for a Moscow arts fair, and unfortunately, it isn't up any more. Check more photos and Malka's artist's statement here.
[Images courtesy of Stéphane Malka]

CULTURAL GUERILLAS

It's been a while...

But "it boggled my mind then" and it made me wonder about the 'state of affairs "today. 
So I took a look ...
Monday, November 26, 2007 in The Guardian published an article on "Cultural Guerillas".
They thought it necessary to repair Paris Pantheon clock. All in extreme secrecy.
It came to light through a lawsuit against Untergunther, for their clandestine restoration. 
L'UX is a clandestine Paris-based organization whose goal it is to improve and restore hidden and neglected relics of urban heritage.
Earlier, in 2004, a L'UX related group, "La Mexicaine De Perforation" was 'caught' on the operation of entertaining a clandestine cinema in a space underneath the Palais de Chaillot on the Place du Trocadero in Paris. The Palais de Chaillot also houses the Musée du Cinema. 

Now there's a book, "La Culture En Clandestins L'UX'". Lazar Kunstmann, spokesman for L'UX and author of the book talks about 25 projects. From the start of the organization, the founding of the cinema, the repair of the Pantheon clock and the process.

25 years clandestine cultural action ... sounds great!

ANDRéE PUTMAN AMBASSADRICE DU STYLE

André Putman, designer / stylist has finally got her overview in the Paris. More a kind of eighties icon, that reintroduced art-deco into the world in a new and stylish, often black and white, fashion. Known for her big studio lamps, black and white tiled bathrooms and love of Jean Michel Frank succeeded to turn this all into a typical 'Putman Style', now on show in the Hotel De Ville.



Découvrez Rétrospective "Andrée Putman, ambassadrice du style" à l'Hôtel de Ville sur Culturebox !

For a dazzling overview; Google images

SLAVA'S SNOW SHOW

Découvrez Slava's Snowshow : le meilleur du cirque contemporain russe en tournée en France sur Culturebox !

ARMAN

Les années soixante / soixante-dix révivent au Centre Pompidou, allez-y!



Découvrez Le centre Pompidou rend hommage à Arman sur Culturebox !

KAARTSPEL MET PARIJS

Nu is er het Plan Interactif des transports en Ile-de-France, een geweldige link voor de Parijsliefhebber. Spelen met de kaart, je lijntje laten oplichten, kijken waar je uitkomt als je... Leuker kunnen ze het niet maken.

kijk op: Plan Interactif des transports en Ile-de-France

CULTURAL GUERILLAS

Revealed to the public by the amazing discovery of the fully equiped clandestine movie theater under the Chaillot Hill built by La Mexicaine De Perforation and the trial against the Untergunther due to their clandestine restoration of the monumental clock of the Panthéon of Paris, L'UX is a Paris based clandestine organisation whose goal is to improve and restore the hidden and abandoned sides of urban inheritage.
Lazar Kunstmann, the spokesman for L'UX, relates in "La culture en clandestins. L'UX" these extraordinaries 25 years of projects from the genesis of the organisation to the trial for the clock.

Read the whole story here