This weekend we headed to Parc de la Villette. The weather can't decide if it is summer of fall. This weekend it was smoking hot and today it is cold and rainy. Parc de la Villete is on the outskirts of Paris and is the venue for Cité de la Science and of Cité de la Musique. To learn more and to see some cool photos, click here: official website or here: wikipedia
The park was designed by Bernard Tschumi, a French architect of Swiss origin, who built it from 1984 to 1987 on the site of the huge Parisian abattoirs (slaughterhouses) and the national wholesale meat market, as part of an urban redevelopment project. The slaughterhouses, built in 1867 on the instructions of Napoléon III, had been cleared away and relocated in 1974. Tschumi won a major design competition in 1982–83 for the park, and he sought the opinions of the deconstructionist philosopher Jacques Derrida in the preparation of his design proposal.
Since the creation of the park, museums, concert halls, and theatres have been designed by several noted contemporary architects, including Christian de Portzamparc, Adrien Fainsilber, Philippe Chaix, Jean-Paul Morel, Méziane Azaïche, and Jean Nouvel, in addition to Mr. Tschumi.
We were looking for some place green to spend out time on a hot, hot day. We also knew that with our family science pass, we could always duck into Cité de la Science. We did not have a good map of the park and therefore mostly just wandered. We began by finding a playground. The playground was packed full of very fit twenty and thirty year old men. Not a bad place to be. The guys were all doing crazy athletic feats using the playground equipment. I watched one guy do about a million pull-ups on the monkey bars. Lillian and Sylvia managed to get in and have a turn, too. This was obviously a weekly place to meet up and to show off.
We also passed many pick up soccer games. This is a much different world than where our apartment is in the 16th arrondissement. Here, unlike our neighborhood, there are a variety of of people speaking lots of different languages and most of them are not wearing tight designer clothes.
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| Dizzy! |
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| Sylvia rode the carousel as Pierre watched and Lillian read as I watched the bikers and walkers along the canal. I didn't even notice that I got the guy with the baby strapped on his back in my photo--yikes! I only saw one serious wipe out. It is very busy and dangerous and no one seems at all fazed by it. Our chairs were also works of art that spun. |
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| It got hot and we retired to Cité de la Science Unfortunately, the kids part was closed for some annual clean up. Luckily, it is a big place. |
These two are learning about vaccines.
I wonder how the cow feels about standing on the site of a former slaughterhouse.
Lucky, I guess.
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