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We have spoken about Paris' Tour Montparnasse before on the blog, and spoken more broadly about the city's discomfort with tall buildings. The Tour Montparnasse is the only skyscraper within the city limits of Paris. If you include the Eiffel Tower, it is one of only two really tall things, though this will soon increase to three with the addition of Herzog and de Meuron's new trapezoidal-shaped tower (now under construction).
The Tour Montparnasse turned 50 this year and so people are now writing about it again. In my opinion, this recent piece in the New Yorker, by Colin Marshall, is particularly thoughtful. Here are two important points that he makes. The first has to do with the fact that kind of old usually isn't enough when it comes to architecture. You need buildings to be really old before they get fully appreciated:
Architectural fashion treasures hundred-and-fifty-year-old structures but derides fifty-year-old ones; hence the works of brutalism that have faced the wrecking ball in recent years. “The destruction of brutalist buildings is more than the destruction of a particular mode of architecture,” Jonathan Meades says, in his television documentary “Bunkers, Brutalism and Bloodymindedness: Concrete Poetry.” “It is like burning books. It’s a form of censorship of the past, a discomfiting past, by the present. It’s the revenge of a mediocre age on an age of epic grandeur.”
The second point is maybe an obvious one:
Aberrations like the Tour Montparnasse only underscore how much Paris remains Haussman’s city, its core frozen in a nineteenth century whose built environment can be restored, and in some cases discreetly renovated, but which—so the severity of the restrictions implies—can never fundamentally be improved upon.
This is, however, a crucial point. Because it directs to why the Tour Montparnasse is so jarring to many, or perhaps most. It is jarring because it is so obviously different from its surrounding 19th century context. It is clearly not that. But as Marshall points out, one way to address this would be to simply add more 21st century context throughout the city.
Of course, this is easier said than done. It would require a new mental model -- one that accepts that the built form of Paris is not static and can be allowed to evolve. We're not there yet. But maybe the current renovation of Tour Montparnasse, or the city's new triangle tower, will give people a fresh set of eyes when it comes to buildings taller than 37 meters.
Photo by Maeva Hemon on Unsplash
I am really interested in these sorts of spaces. In this case, these is an old brutalist office building in Kanazawa, Japan that was purchased in 2019 by artist Hiraki Sawa. The original intent was to turn it into a co-working space, but eventually the idea evolved into a hybrid "co-being" space that can be rented as a place to stay and/or as a place to facilitate creativity.
The space itself was left mostly raw and exposed, but neon movable walls were inserted by AB Rogers Design that allow you to configure the volumes as you'd like. What's interesting about spaces like these is that they enable play and experimentation. Maybe it also makes money, or maybe it doesn't. But that doesn't seem to be the main point.
Utah is beautiful. See here.
People in SLC are really nice. Strangers greet you on the street. Motorists are also more polite and patient. I had no idea how to respond. I suspect it might have something to do with there being less traffic and, in turn, less frustration. But again, even if you ignore what happens on the road, people are nice.
You will need a serious utility vehicle to navigate the topography of this region. Venturing into the surrounding canyons requires 4-wheel drive or chains during snowstorms. I was only there for a week and already I have visions of a classic Defender in my mind. Do they come in electric versions?
The streets are too wide for proper enjoyment as a pedestrian. This is a challenging problem to fix, as I have mentioned before. That said -- and this is going to be an unpopular opinion -- the city felt void of any sort of real traffic. The distances travelled are great, but the highways actually flow freely. You also never really need to worry about parking.
Electric scooters are popular in SLC. As is cycling -- both for getting around and as a reason to wear tight-fitting bright clothes.
SLC feels as if it is both under the radar and also rapidly emerging. My new favorite restaurant in SLC is a place called Post Office Place. We walked in without a reservation on a Friday night and they gladly took us. I couldn't understand why the place wasn't rammed. I mean, they have Marseille-style panisse on the menu!
The Granary District is an area to watch. It is a former industrial area to the southwest of downtown. It is already home to breweries, food halls, and creative offices. But it needs some more time to properly fill in. We stayed at the Evo Hotel in Granary (highly recommend). The campus amenities include a rock climbing facility, an indoor skatepark, and plenty of places to work and Zoom.
Most of the new infill housing appears to be mid-rise in scale and most of it is wood-frame construction on top of concrete.
By my estimation (and by estimation I mean that I have a spreadsheet for this), the ski and snowboard communities surrounding SLC are some of the most accessible in North America. Land at SLC airport and you're in the mountains in 20-30 minutes.
Park City-Canyons is the most well-known ski destination. But if you're a more aggressive skier -- the kind that keeps your gloves together with duct tape and counts the number of ski days per season -- you'll want to head over to the Cottonwood canyons and places like Snowbird and Brighton.
Snowbird remains one of my all-time favorite ski destinations for two reasons: the mountain itself and the brutalist architecture at the bottom of it. There's none of that faux alpine crap over here -- just exposed and unabashed concrete and wood. And who doesn't love brutalism, right? (I haven't been to Brighton yet but one of my local friends told me that it's a great snowboarders mountain.)
The Canyons Village at Park City is developing really nicely. As I understand it, it's only about 30-40% built out at this stage. The Pendry Hotel just recently opened (announcement here) and I can tell you that the restaurants were generally busy every night of the week (summer experience). The project team did a wonderful job creating a place and a new anchor in the village.
What did I miss in this list?
The point is to empower creativity. And finding spaces to do this can be tough in competitive markets where demand is consistently outstripping supply. Oftentimes you need some slack in the system so that there's literal breathing room for new ideas, or rich people who can make it so.
Whatever the case, I am a believer that when given the opportunity, people will generally find a way to imagine and create. So if you happen to find yourself in Kanazawa and would like to book this space, which is called Fish Market, click here. Guests are being asked to submit a request explaining how and why they'd like to use the space.
It'll be fun to see what this leads to.
Photos: Takumi Ota via AB Rogers Design
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