Paris
France
Sketches
2018
If you have ever been in Paris, you will probably return every now and then. This is at least my case. I have been lucky enough to spend a few weeks in early summer, when the city is preparing itself for the high peak of the season, so I could enjoy the splendid avenues and narrow medieval alleys without a crowd.
When you freely roam the elegant districts around Arc de Triomphe or ancient Latin Quarter you notice in a first line a rows of tenement houses with eclectic facades, plenty of masonry details, ornamented windows’ casings, endless lines of cast-iron balusters or aligned cornices defining the straight roofline. The cityscape presents itself rather as a mass built from unique yet coherent architecture of details that overwhelm with imagination of its builders. The masterpieces like Notre Dame cathedral or Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés tend to complement rather than dominate this vast ocean of bourgeois streets, medieval alleys, grand avenues, geometric public squares and more private courtyards.
Of course you can always choose your own lens to admire the luring beauty of Paris. Is it a scale of long perspective axes cutting through the dense urban tissue or more intimate scale of buildings’ interiors you will definitely, as I still do, wonder how complete, multi-layered and fascinating a city can be.