In striking contrast to the nearby Sainte-Chapelle and Notre-Dame, the Evangelical Lutheran Church des Billettes is austere and undecorated, with bare walls and plain-glass windows. I went there one evening in the summer of 2008 to hear a concert of Gregorian chants from the 10th to 13th centuries, sung by Read More …
This is my nomination for the world’s most beautiful concert venue, the 13th century Sainte Chapelle on the Île de la Cité in the center of Paris. On many evenings there are two one-hour concerts here, the first at 19:00 (7.00 pm) and the second at 20:30 (8.30 pm). I Read More …
When I first saw the announcement for this concert in 2008, I must admit I was a bit suspicious. It said in large letters: “HOMMAGE à MARIA CALLAS” followed in smaller letters by the name of a soprano I had never heard of, who was said to be “from La Read More …
When I was a child, I loved the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, so I was confident I would also like the one in Paris — and I do. The one in Paris is officially called the Cité des sciences et de l’industrie, with sciences in the plural Read More …
You might easily mistake this inconspicuous stairway for the entrance to an underground parking garage — which, in fact, is what it was originally meant to be. Here where the ancient Romans lived, worked and bathed from the first to the fourth centuries AD, here where tens of thousands of Read More …
In earlier years I was puzzled by the name of this building, since I knew the word concierge only as a person who sat at the entrance to an apartment building to keep track of who went in and out. But in medieval times the Concierge was a high government Read More …
The ancient Roman arena on this site was destroyed by the Barbarians in the year 280. The foundations were rediscovered during various building projects in the nineteenth century and were (partly) preserved on the initiative of a committee led by the author Victor Hugo (1802–1885). One of the minor mysteries Read More …
La Rotonde de la Villette was built in 1784 by the architect Claude Nicolas Ledoux (1736-1806) for use as a toll house. Anyone entering the city had to stop here and pay a tax on any merchandise they were bringing with them. If you have ever seen the opera La Read More …
Since electing its first Socialist mayor in 2001, the city of Paris has made considerable progress in re-allocating public space: widening sidewalks, narrowing streets, creating bus and bicycle lanes and reducing the space devoted to cars. But the problem is so widespread that numerous streets in Paris still have grotesquely Read More …
In the fourth arrondissement of Paris, at the corner of Quai des Célestins and Boulevard Henri IV, there is a fine example of a belle époque apartment building from the beginning of the twentieth century. It is a solid stone building with seven floors above ground level, with the traditional Read More …