2019 A Visual Diary of Paris - "Esprit / Muse / Vivre"

VIII ARCH7275 SUMMER ELECTIVE A VISUAL DIARY OF PARIS

PARIS III

Professor NASRINE SERAJI

EMV

OBSERVE, READ, COLLECT, DRAW, RECORD...

SELECT 7275//2019 Rochelle Charis Yu

Subhiksha BHOOVARAHAN Laurene Jingxi CEN Regina Pin An CHEN Jacky Ka Chun LAI Giselle Ching Yue LAU Ian Man Ki LAW Sum Yu WONG Rochelle Charis YU Michelle Chelsea HO Sampson Cheuk Sum IP Karine LEUNG Rui LI Jingjing LIU Sailing Hang MU Dixie Xin SUI James Bochao SUN Harry Wang Yat TO Shuyuan XIANG Tracy Tsz Wing YEUNG Jenny Jingyao ZENG

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ESPRIT MUSE VIVRE SOUL MUSE LIVE

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魂 靈 魄

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Architecture is nothing without the architects who work behind them and the people who inhabit it.

Soul. The pursuit of Parisian architecture in shaping a well-lived life to lead a materially fulfilling and culturally rich life - which is hereby interpreted as the “soul” of their architecture.

Muses. In English, literally “people who inspire”. What is an intellectual discussion, without people - dead or alive - who propose their own ideas and discuss them?

Throughout the trip, there have been numerous conversations and anecdotes, that becomes memories, not merely on an academic level but also on a personal level. I hope to record a personal account of them via fictional characters.

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Fiction allows us to slide into these other heads, these other places, and look out through other eyes. And then in the tale we stop before we die, or we die vicariously and unharmed, and in the world beyond the tale we turn the page or close the book, and we resume our lives.

Neil Gaiman, American Gods.

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Murex // Aperture

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There’s a lot for you to see, before you deem yourself unsuited for the job.

Here, let us show you.

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Clio // Monument

“Murex sent me a memo,” said Clio. “She said you’d be coming. To be precise, she had notified all of us and told us not to be bothered.”

Gwyn looked at her, still dumbfounded by being teleported through (what she assumed to be) a portal. She looked around her and found that she could not tell the time; the lights were an artificial fluorescence, and there were no windows in sight. Concrete formed the walls, beams and pillars; between each beam, the ceiling curved upwards in an arc and then met the other beam at the end of the arc.

“Where are we?” asked Gwyn.

Clio lifted her pen and wrote in it, leaving her question unanswered.

Gwyn looked around, and ventured, “Is this a crypt of sorts?”

This time, she looked at Clio intently, as if it would get Clio to respond.

Clio, however, leisurely flipped the page. Seeing no response, she sighed and sat up, deciding to take a couple moments to look around her.

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“You were the one who sought me,” said Clio slowly. “And yet, you do not talk to me.”

Gwyn swallowed a “technically, Murex made me go on a field trip”.

She knew better than to bring her mentor into discussion. “I thought you didn’t want to talk,” she sulked instead.

Clio clasped her notebook shut, and suddenly Gwyn felt the weight of her full attention uncomfortably.

“What is it that you’d want to talk about, then?” said Clio. Seeing Gwyn’s hesitation, she added, “I imagine you’d have been able to know a bit about me just from looking around the mind palace. Now, tell me.

What did you see?”

First, Gwyn had almost forgotten what a ‘mind palace’ was, so she was visibly confused. Clio’s expectant expression pressured her. A mind palace. Right-

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“Stop describing the building…” murmured Clio, voicing out her thoughts. She had the air of a lecturer, at the first day of teaching a new

class, who had just realized this new session of students lacked the intellectual vitality she for which she had been craving all summer.

“Certainly you must have felt something else other than the building itself and its state in the current timeline?”

“I guess,” said Gwyn uncertainly. Gwyn’s glare made her straighten her back and refine her answer. “This used to be near an excavation site for Greco-Roman artifacts, I think. There were a bunch of very excited archaelogists. (That guy who picked up the Jupiter head looked like he

had just won the lottery.) And - Roman, yes, right - there are a bunch of guys in togas (who were having a lewd and riveted conversation most attrative goddess second to Venus, mind you), at a different period, I’m guessing a far earlier period, so there used to be a Roman city here. Yep.” Clio waited for more. There was none, and she raised an eyebrow.

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Gwyn gulped. “And there’s a memory involving an intimate male friend, who not only found solace in being able to bring his ambitions to

life, but also to do his friend a great favour. But I have no idea what he has to do with this.”

Clio’s lips tightened. Gwyn was quite sure she had stepped on a line. “He is the architect behind the Gallo-Roman Museum, on which this mind palace is simultaneously developed.

You should have been able to scry this, at least. Even if you didn’t catch that his name is Bernard Zehrfuss. As a muse, it is imperative that you make a quick and sound interpretation of memories-” Gwyn let out a groan of frustration.

“I can’t be a muse,” said Gwyn. “It’s been two years, and still I have no clue what I’m about.

I’m not like you guys - all of you have a specific area of expertise - a domain. And I - I only get to listen and nod and take notes. But though I’ve walked around taking note of everything, I still can’t seem to find my specialty, and I feel like I’m constantly trying to work at something I’m not good at. Like now, I’m really terrible at picking up tangible points of history because I don’t understand the images that I see.

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“I don’t have what it takes to be a muse,” she said, turning her head to the side. “You’re all grand and assured and confident. I’m just… a lost kid tagging along with you, destined to be a wannabe for the rest of my existence.” Not that I’d have much time left if I don’t figure this out soon, she thought dully.

She sneaked a glance at the older muse. To her surprise, Clio’s expression softened. Under the spiral of time - Gwyn realized she had instinctively translated la spirale du temps - a halo seemed to have formed behind the head of the taller muse.

“How we act isn’t all we are, Gwyn.”

Clio lodged on the railing. “And it’s alright if you’re not at your best yet.

You’ve still yet to find what you’re most comfortable with. Besides,” - she shot Gwyn a sidelong glare “Not even Mel could tell me that bit about Ber- Zehrfuss, though.

That he enjoyed this project that 24

“For me… the world expects me to be neutral, to welcome the winners and praise them for the years to come. But I’ve always had a soft spot for the misfits. As outcasts, they’re already cast on the side. If there is no proof of their existence, how else should they prevail? I cannot bear to see the demise of a novel idea, no matter how trivial. The saddest fate of an idea is for it to fade without having any proof of its existence.”

Clio opened her notebook, flipped it to a blank spread, and handed it to Gwyn. Lines of text wrote themselves, each a different handwriting in a muted inks of its own colour, overlapping upon each other; eventually, a line in solid ink emerged, its line ending in a full stop, stifling the conversation that had been happening. Clio waved her index finger over the final line, towards the page on the right. On the left, the originally jumbled text rearranged themselves neatly into lines, and the signatures of their authors appeared, shyly, at their ends.

“So I do within my ability and role, what I can, for the misfits. You wouldn’t find that on the résume in other Clio prescedents,” she smiled wickedly, and for a moment Gwyn realized she could very well be looking at a nurse who brought about the plurality of ideas in the modern period.

And the existence of weird, obscure cults. Gwyn thought of the more murderous ones and wondered if it was a good idea entirely; but, she settled on the thought that, facilitating changes in the bigger picture was worth the existence of the few bad apples in the bunch. “I guess I do prefer to live in a colourful hodgepodge of thoughts than a world of a singular mind,” she said.

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Clio smiled, her mouth reaching the greatest extent a typically emotionless face would permit.

“Ever heard of a matroshyka, Gwyn?”

“A what?”

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“To satisfy the world on the outside, to preserve your values on the inside,” summarized Gwyn. “That feels like cheating… but it’s genius.”

“And very hard to execute,” said Clio.

“But if there is any evidence of its effectiveness, there’s always the Musée au Travaux Publics.”

“On the outside, one may assume it is a building with multi-storey tall grand halls. But on the inside you can see that there are more floor divisions than the façade suggests. The building fits in the scale of the city while the interior fits the human scale and does not render the human too small. In this essay I will-“

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Clio shook her head. “Unfortunately, Perret didn’t hit it as big as Le Corbusier - otherwise, it wouldn’t just be the five points that would have been worshipped for the times to come. There could have been further consideration of scales and appearances…”

“Huh, I guess not all greatness is recognized…”

“Well, even if people don’t coin an official term, many do manage to show it in their works.” Clip winked.

“But it’d still be better if it were popularized,” said Gwyn. “At least he could have been better remembered.”

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“There are many great men who don’t work to be remembered.” said Clio matter-of-factly. “Those who are remembered usually regarded fame as one of their goals.”

Gwyn was reminded of Le Corbusier and Eileen Grey. She sent Le Corbusier’s soul a silent curse.

“It’s a bit of a tragedy, really… But that’s Mel’s territory. She comes across - all the time - famous architects that aren’t as good as their more obscure counterparts. So,” she patted Gwyn on the shoulder. “Off you go!”

From Gwyn’s vision, Clio and the Musée faded to black. When her vision returned, she found herself...

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Melpomene // Tragedy

“Huh… and I thought you’re a muse of tragedy. Feels like you’re inhabiting a paradise,” remarked Gwyn.

Mel raised an eyebrow, and slapped her on the shoulder.

“Oh, you know I never have a go on the truly great places.

Of course I’m after this Renzo Piano piece like a hungry hyena.” In a quick change of demeanour, she slid one of her arms around Gwyn into a headlock, and dug her other hand into the hair of the younger muse, making Gwyn giggle.

“I’d chosen the most homely court I’ve ever come across, and it’s Piano’s Court of Justice. Anyway, this is a Grand Central Station for all the people that need to be inspired to do better,” explained Mel. “Tiny, normal, everyday crimes, crimes not necessarily brought to the court, but nonetheless deemed worthy of judgement.”

A plump, bald, middle-aged man in a white shirt walked by, his face contorted into a grimace, clutching his chest as he trudged by. Gwyn noticed that Mel was looking at the man following him, a fidgety man in a white shirt and a red silk ribbon around his wrist, who appeared to be in his 30s, was dragging two bamboo poles as he plodded along - one of them probably belonged to his master.

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“Evil is banal,” declared Mel. “Hannah was brutal with this statement, but she has never been more accurate or cautionary.

“Remember this. People don’t make bad architecture because they are evil overlords who act as anti-architects, no. They make bad architecture because they are careless, they haven’t thought it through, or they just couldn’t care at that moment, or there were ‘greater forces at work’ that forced them to conform, or there was a reward for sticking to the status quo - in short, because they are human and their abilities are limited.”

Mel’s brows tightened, and she squinted at a figure leaning on the glass railing on the third storey. “For example, that guy over there is responsible for the collapse of the false ceiling in a pedestrian tunnel. Why? ‘Boss said to finish the false ceiling in two days, so I let them do a rush job on the connectors that supported the beams that hoisted the decorative cloths.’ ‘The door to the construction site broke, but it’s not like boss would care if I mentioned it after the site visit, and the workers would have to pay from their own pockets to fix it, so we never bothered. Now somebody went up and hacked at the stuff up there, on a protest night so no one was there to notice, and that was just bad luck’... You get my drift.”

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Gwyn frowned. “He sounded like he had his difficulties and he tried his best,” she said.

“Sympathy is one thing,” Mel tilted her head. “But tolerating such mistakes for the sake of being sympathetic? Not really. Try to think of it - the corridor is located in the middle of an important pedestrian bridge network. Thousands of people walk past it every day. What if there were people under when the false ceiling fell?

“Neglect as a human fault,” Mel said pointedly. “cannot be excused, because it often has consequences. It begins with the small things. An architect intern forgets to give the doors a proper swinging range. An architect wastes a view by arranging the roof platform into randomized triangular planes. Someone makes a fitting for a cheaper type of lights, making frequent replacement a necessity. Then the bigger mistakes. A grandiose glass facade accelerates the development of cataracts of all other office workers caught in the glare in the adjacent office tower. A longwinded path to enter the pedestrian bridge, easily blocked by a line of policemen, traps a protesting crowd on the ground and almost causes a stampede.

“Knowing these consequences - the ones that result from the same human carelessness for which you’d been sympathetic - will you be willing to forgive them, then?”

Gwyn could not refute.

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“The true tragedy, then,” Mel said. “Is we can’t be entirely empathic and tolerant and still keep our world functioning. That’s why you should never draw your strength from your emotions, only - ow,” Gwyn had punched Mel on the shoulder.

“That’s not helpful at all as emotional counselling,” complained Gwyn.

“As the muse of tragedy, you’re pretty terrible at making people feel better about tragedies.”

“C’est comme ça, Guinevere.” said Mel. She had slung her arm over the back of the chair, behind Gwyn.

For a moment, they sat in silence, watching the people as they walked by.

Some bore expressions of fear, some bore anger, and still others betrayed no emotion, their eyes looking ahead wearily with a glassy quality.

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“But of course that doesn’t mean we’ll just accept it as it is,” said Gwyn.

“How else would things improve?”

Mel sighed dramatically. “It’s called tragedies for a reason,” she said.

“It’s things you can’t solve easily.”

Mel nodded. “For now, I’m just focused on collecting data... for posterity,” she said, frowning at a helmeted policeman that passed by, in his hands a rifle, and on his side an aloof policeman, who bore more stripes on his badge, walking with his hands clasped behind him and his chin lifted, and, with and groaned. “Gives me a headache sometimes, seeing all this happening and not being able to help with everything.”

Gwyn turned to look at Mel. The older muse‘s hand was on the bridge of her nose, her features had tightened, her eyes closed in concentration. “I could help with some,” Gwyn ventured, and held out her hand to pat her on the shoulder.

“Thanks,” said Mel, and she glanced at Gwyn sideways, and her grimace broke into a mischievous smile. “Shall I show you where to start?”

“S-sure,” said Gwyn.

“Here.”

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Mel waited until Gwyn’s grip loosened, before she, too, let her arms fall.

“I guess that’s your calling, “You’ve always been naïvely hopeful about everything,” said Mel, who smiled. “I guess Thalia could be a much better mentor for you. Go find her.”

Gwyn did not want to step away.

“There aren’t a lot of people who believe that there’s redemption for all.”

She half-punched, half-nudged Gwyn on the shoulder. “Be one of them, and never lose your faith. Now, leave me be.”

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Urania // Constellation

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Thalia // Home

“Took you a while to get here,” said Thalia.

“Yeah… went on a bit of a detour.” said Gwyn, stroking the back of her neck, which still ached from sleeping on the armchair back at La Roche. “Can’t turn down Urania, you know?” To which she received a light punch on the shoulder and a sulk from the other muse as a reply.

She laughed, and said, “trust me, you’d have done the same in my place.

I’m going to make sure you’re with me next time, alright?”

Thalia could no longer hold her pout, so her mouth cracked into a smile instead. “How was it, anyway?”

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“Much better than Mel’s,” she said, and felt her smile fade as she recollected the visions she had encountered earlier. “Actually, it was less about actual buildings and more about the city, as Urania sees it. It’s like she poured the gold through a mold and for a moment I was… so clear of how things flowed in the city. That was the gist of it, I guess.”

Thalia held her glance on Gwyn, until Gwyn looked away selfconsciously. “But those aren’t the answers you were seeking, weren’t they?” She held out her hand. “Here, perhaps I could help you with

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[preview of A3 spread. The plan will be filled in with more content equivalent to 8 pages...]

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It took Gwyn some time to calm and recollect herself. It had been a long time since she had seen Thalia, not to mentionWhatever she has been tossed into, Gwyn was quite confused. Back in the Institut du Monde Arabe - and the Gallo-Roman Museum, and the Paris Tribunals, for the matter - she knew exactly where she was in the building; there were repeating patterns throughout the floors, a continuous void which was visible throughout the entire building, that helped her locate herself.

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Now, she found herself in the middle of a triangular balcony, with doors on one side, and no visible exit in the… floor unit? Apartment?

The potted flowers and the overgrown bush felt homely enough for it to be an apartment.

“Where am I?” asked Gwyn.

“The Stars of Renaudie,” said Thalia.

Gwyn frowned. “Renaudie,” the name sounded familiar, but she could not recall from where.

"One of my favourites, so you've probably heard of him before." said Thalia, as she helped Gwyn up. “He had this great idea about residences that let people live properly - by thinking of projects as an ecosystem of many different parts - functions that were close to, and tied in with each other - as opposed to shoving zones and programs into a “mixed program” project. And that’s why -” with her index fingers, she gestured a triangle. “He made his unit triangular. So that it stacks up differently than your typical rectilinear residences. So that all the terraces and living rooms beyond can be under the sun.”

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At the gardens beneath them, a gloved woman had crouched next to her tomato plant, rustling its leaves as she turned its soil. “So that it’s something different, something that is unique to each resident. This is social housing - you know - and Renaudie, with his projects in the area, was making a statement - ‘just because you’re living off social security, doesn’t mean you do not deserve to express your individuality’."

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and smiled, reinvigorated. “And individuality brings… joy.”

“You.” Gwyn clarified.

“Indeed.”

“But still, I feel as though this is too utopian to be actually realized everywhere.”

“Are you demanding that I be everywhere at once?”

Thalia mock-retorted. “It’s quite impossible really, but modernism’s hope for utopianism is about finding the perfect logic for all solutions, for all locations, so they have also done many projects they are formally less diverse, but projects that nonetheless let the residents express themselves.” said Thalia. "Here, let me show you some of them."

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“Aren’t architects seem to be a depressing bunch?” said Thalia. “On one, they believe in ideals bigger than themselves; most fail to reach what they wanted, whether of their own shortcomings or of other unfortunate circumstances beyond their control; and the few who manage to make their ideals manifest are often accused of condescension. But that’s the thing I like about them - no matter how pessimistic they are, no matter how the world goes against them, they are always reaching out to an ideal…”

“Even in disasters I’ve seen with Mel,” remarked Gwyn.

“Even in disasters, yes, they see a way out.” in the distance - Gwyn knew the source was her own psyche, and not Thalia’s - a rumble of dissatisfied murmurs seem to ring. Gwyn stiffened from the calling, and then took a deep breath. She did not want her dream to end just yet, but there was work to be done, now or never. Thalia looked at her grave expression and sighed. On their clasped hands, she felt Thalia’s thumb brush against hers reassuringly.

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“Bring these back. Bring them hope,” said Thalia, she clasped her other hand onto theirs, and squeezed.

Gwyn nodded. “I will,” she said. “In times like these, they need to believe in a vision they can realize.” She lifted Thalia’s hands to her lips, and caught the scents of honey and freshly-cut grass. She then turned and made her way towards the fading edges of the estate’s concrete ground - the edge of Thalia’s mind palace.

“Good luck, Guinevere.”

“See you around, Thalia.”

As their hands slipped off from each other’s, Gwyn felt the familiar wash of white in her vision, and found herself caught in a damp heat.

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Murex // Resolve

The sun touched her skin at the slanted angle of the afternoon sun, and Gwyn felt thick but tough blades of grass beneath her fingers. Where she lounged, she was surrounded by people in black shirts who were sheltering themselves with large umbrellas and fanning themselves.

A woman’s voice rang from a distant speaker, the source of the voice out of sight.

At the sound of a small, distant explosion, the voice cut off, and the crowd stood up immediately and craned their necks to look at the source. Three streaks of white fumes trailed after the recently-fired tear gas canisters.

Murmurs of obscenities sounded, all insults on what Gwyn assumed to be the sanity of the police.

“So, have you found what you needed?” Murex’s voice came from behind. “We’ve still got a long way to go.” Gwyn found her presence comforting.

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They moved towards the growing cloud of white fumes, in the opposite direction of a crowd that slowly retreated to the front. Her dress shirt morphed into an unassuming black tee.

As goggles and a yellow helmet materialized on her head, she conjured a gas mask in her open palm and cupped in to her face.

Murex had morphed into a similar dress, but with dark visors, and where on her left hand was (Gwyn chuckled at Murex’s theatrics) a beast of an umbrella, the kind that sheltered 3 people and withstood typhoons. Gwyn shrugged and decided a smaller black umbrella, slung across her shoulder with a makeshift strap, would suffice. They made their way towards the edge of Tamar Park, and saw, from the edge of the railings, well-equipped teenagers pushing steadily behind a makeshift barricade of fences, towards the right where the cannisters had originated.

“Let’s begin,” said Murex.

“Without further ado,” said Gwyn, her gaze stiffened with intent, and they made their way towards the stairs at the end of the nearby footbridge.

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Map of Paris

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Bibliography

on the subject of muses and references to Greek mythology.

Theoi Project. "Mousai." Accessed June 1, 2019. https://www.theoi.com/Ouranios/ Mousai.html. p18-21 on Gallo-Roman Museum of Lyon. n.a., "“Bernard Zehrfuss, Architecte de la spirale du temps” Gallo-Roman Museum Lyon," Bigmat International Architecture Agenda, November 14, 2015, https://www. bmiaa.com/bernard-zehrfuss-architecte-de-la-spirale-du-temps-gallo-roman-museum-lyon/. p62-63 on the Stars of Renaudie.

Chabani, Meriem, and Edom, John. "Revisit: Les Étoiles d'Ivry, Paris, France, by Jean Renaudie and René​e Gailhoustet," The Architectural Review, May 20, 2019, https://www.architectural-review.com/buildings/revisit-les-toiles-divry-parisfrance-by-jean-renaudie-and-rene-gailhoustet/10042586.article.

Lambert, Léopold. "Ivry-sur-Seine: The Architectural Genius of Renée Gailhoustet & Jean Renaudie in Paris Banlieues," The Funambulist, May 21, 2018, https://thefunambulist.net/architectural-projects/ivry-sur-seine-architectural-genius-renee-gailhoustet-jean-renaudie-paris-banlieues.

Scalbert, Irènèe. A Right to Difference: The Architecture of Jean Renaudie. London: Architectural Association 2004. p64 on les Orgues de Flandre. n.a., "les Orgues de Flandre," Whitelies, January 1, 2018, https://www.whiteliesmagazine.com/blog/2018/1/29/les-orgues-de-flandre. p65 on Fernand Pouillon.

McKay, Graham Brenton. "Architecture Misfit #29: Fernand Pouillon," misfits' architecture, May 14, 2017, https://misfitsarchitecture.com/2017/05/14/architecture-misfit-29-fernand-pouillon/.

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Image Reference p41 - sketch of the Canopee des Halles from

Berger Anziutti Architects, "La Canopée des Halles," Archi EXPO, n.d., https:// projects.archiexpo.com/project-231164.html. p56-59 - plan of "les etoiles" traced from drawings in Scalbert, Irènèe. A Right to Difference: The Architecture of Jean Renaudie. London: Architectural Association 2004.

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Epilogue

...Attempting to draw a serious graphic novel is way harder than I thought it would be.

One of the biggest challenges one encounters is - how should a modern-day allegory act like? It’s obvious that the muse of history would naturally be a history nerd, the muse of dance would be a dancer, etc.. But at the end of the day they are symbols who embody pretty big issues with themselves, and to make them relatable they have to be characters who have - well - character.

Throughout the drawing process I’ve rewritten bits of the plot and changed entire arcs at least once, partly due to (1) honest reflections of my artistic ineptitude and (2) the characters were really trying too hard to shove “omg wisdom and knowledge” into people’s faces. So I wondered, how should I create a discourse out of this proposal of a story idea, instead of just… dump information and cliche wisdom? With some interest in ethics and psychology I finally managed to limp through the process of pulling my story and ideas of the muses as people (as opposed to mere allegories) together. And with limited time, I guess, I’ll settle on this for now, and probably pick up more of Arendt and Beauvoir as I trudge along an attempt for creative career. MAYBE.

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The decision to incorporate Hong Kong's recent issues is because, no matter how happy I was to go on a very packed architectural trip in Paris, I have been mindf__ed by what's happening at home. Every weekend we find our conceptions of Hong Kong's political freedoms eroded to a new degree. I hope to incorporate its insidious quality in the story as well - it's a discourse that I cannot escape from, and no architect in Hong Kong can escape from, if one is to start new and better ways of building in the godforsaken city.

fig. 1. A student attempts to do homework while tear gas is fired 300m behind her.

And, by incorporating political issues into a piece of summer architectural homework is a statement and performance art of itself. It’s a way of saying that one can continue with “normal life” even if such a huge hole has been blown in the collective HK psyche. I guess by the time I’ve finished this, a lot of people at home have already developed a much tougher psyche, but I want to get people around me to do something about The Issue - and stop using architecture as an excuse to be apathetic - by demonstrating, “hey, you can put this in your studio, you know? Let me show you...”

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