Le Corbusier at the Pratt

The design philosophy and work of Charles Édouard Jeanneret-Gris – Le Corbusier – will be celebrated starting August 30 when the Brooklyn-based architecture and design school, Pratt Institute debuts a free exhibition of his architecture, design, painting, writing and urban planning.

“Le Corbusier – Miracle Boxes” will present more than 50 of Corbu’s public buildings, including his exhibition pavilions, museums, theaters, cultural centers, monument and temples, as well as documentaries on his life and work.  Pratt says this is the first New York exhibition in 60 years dedicated entirely to the work of a man who some believe was the greatest architect of the 20th century.  The last exhibit was at New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1951.  (When the architect first visited New York City at the invitation of MoMA in 1935, he said New York City's skyscrapers should have been bigger and spaced farther apart.)

I’m hoping I can find a way to see this ambitious exhibit. I saw another on Corbu in Paris some years ago, and I've visited his Atelier Ozenfant on avenue Reille in Paris and the splendid Villa Savoye about 30 minutes outside the city. I remember less about how these buildings looked like than I do about how it felt standing inside -- lonely, uneasy, exposed.  You may not love the buildings, but they elicit strong feelings and you can't forget their raw beauty.  

The Miracle Box that gives this exhibit its name is a full-scale construction, based on Corbu’s smallest architectural project, a seven-and-a-half-foot cube that was originally located inside his Paris atelier. The reproduction will also feature Corbu’s 1947 sculpture “Ozon” and the 1932 painting “Verre,” which were both originally featured in the “working cell,” as he called it. The Miracle Box will be on display outside of the Pratt Library in Brooklyn coinciding with the start of the exhibition on August 30 and will be installed in the library’s lobby as part of the school’s permanent collection following the exhibition. 

Four years after Corbu wrote about his Miracle Box as a container you can fill with “everything you dream of,” he expanded the ideas behind this project into a small summer house for himself and his wife.   In fact, this tiny box was the only structure Le Corbusier ever built for himself -- a 172-square foot (16 square meter), wooden cabin at Cap Martin that he referred to as his “castle on the Riviera.”  

The exterior, at first glance, looked like thousands of other simple, French summer cabanons, but the interior was a spectacularly detailed, elegant “machine for living.” And live in it he did, spending 10 summers there, working in an adjacent studio on projects such as the pilgrimage chapel, Notre Dame du Haut Ronchamp (1955) that he “dedicated to nature.”  

After the Pratt exhibit closes in New York, it will tour Bogota, Rome, Florence, Barcelona, London, Paris and other cities. I can't wait to see it. 

French Bloggers Take a Holiday

We are nearing the end of the beloved Fermeture Annuelle, the annual summer closing of millions of French businesses every July or August.  Especially in August, much of Paris shuts down and thousands of Parisians head to the warmth and pleasures of Provence. Meanwhile, everyone in Provence bails to their own summer retreats and travels.

Americans visiting here often ask with a level of incredulity reserved for UFOs, "This restaurant is CLOSED?! But it's August. It's tourist season. Don't they worry about losing money?!!"

Mais, non.  Money is nice but summer holidays are sacred. Time with family and friends, time to enjoy the pleasures of a good book, meal, conversation are incomparably more important than filling a bank account.

Now, the Fermeture Annuelle has been taken to the next level. The lovely French Website-blog-online store Couleur Chanvre is in Periode Bleu -- closed for the month of August. It is an official summer closing and they're not alone. This month I've noticed many blogs doing the same thing.  I hope this formal closing takes hold, becomes a trend and spreads to American bloggers. We must all unplug every so often -- it is essential to creativity, perspective, reflection and balance.

What do you think? Do you close down your blog officially for holidays?

Bravo Couleur Chanvre.  Et bonnes vacances!

A "Princely" Airport and a Stunning Work of Art

Aeroports de Paris, the operator of Paris' Charles DeGaulle and Orly, reported this week that airports in the French capital saw a 3.1% increase in passenger traffic in July compared with the same month of 2009.  

The numbers just reinforce the experience of anyone who has arrived at one of Paris' main airports  -- especially international travelers -- over the last few years.  The crowds are horrific, the terminals redolent with body heat and the panic of potential missed planes, everything feels rumpled and dirty and more than a little confusing. I do a lot of business travel besides my back and forth between houses in Texas and Provence, so I've had a lot of time to wonder why airports cannot be designed for humans, why they must be so consistently ugly, uncomfortable, and dehumanizing. The Paris airports are better than many, but I’ve begun looking for ways to avoid the biggest airports, the most popular travel days and the crowds. 

This summer, rather than flying Air France to DeGaulle, I flew British Airways through Heathrow to Lyon Saint-Exupéry, a train station and airport named after the author of "Le Petit Prince," Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.  I can't recall ever wanting to spend MORE time in an train station or airport -- but this is not a place to be rushed through and endured.  This is a destination, a small wonder, a work of art.  As art, it is not merely visually appealing, it evokes feelings and associations and memories. As the fox tells the Little Prince, "on ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur" ("one sees clearly only with the heart").  I realize I sound a little goofy waxing on about an airport but, really, this is something quite special.  

If Eero Saarinen's Dulles Airport terminal looks like an aircraft wing, Saint-Exupéry appears to be a marvelous, metal bird perched on a concrete field but ready for flight.  Designed by the world famous Spanish engineer and architect Santiago Calatrava, the train station connects directly to the main airport terminal and airport hotel. Calatrava's design was selected in open competition and built between 1989 and 1994. (Check out his current projects slated for New York, Chicago and Dallas.) Why more people don't use this lovely port of entry for coming and back and forth to France -- why I haven't used it until now -- is beyond me. Many of the fast TGV trains (train a grande vitesse) connecting Paris with Geneva and southern France stop at the Lyons Airport (as well as at the main station in central Lyons, Part Dieu), so for anyone traveling to Switzerland or points south, Lyon is far easier than going through Paris. The airport is an easy 20-minute cab ride from central Lyons, a lively, sophisticated, beautiful and underrated city built not along just one river like Paris, but two. 

On my way back to the States, I took the TGV to Lyon and had the surprising pleasure of a walk through the station, a lofty, exhilarating interior with windows like glass feathers and bones of steel. There was barely a soul in the entire place -- a couple of SNCF employees, a dozen passengers who rushed from train to plane, leaving me for a few minutes virtually alone. When I finally tore myself away, it took just two minutes to walk to the main terminal and an additional two minutes more to cross the small airport plaza to the NH Lyon Airport Hotel. Total time from station platform to registration desk, about 5 minutes.

The NH, by the way, is quite a bargain. For a little more than $100 (book ahead), I had a comfortable, clean, stylish room that overlooked the main terminal and was absolutely silent. Pleasant staff at the desk, nice deep tub, flat-panel TV, fluffy pillows.  Just about everything you could ask for in an airport hotel. Getting out the next morning was entirely stress-free. Paris is now my second choice as a place to enter France and catch the TGV. And the increase in passenger traffic at DeGaulle and Orly is only going to get worse, making Lyons an ever more attractive port of call. 

Delicacy and discretion in a bottle

It used to take a lot of courage to admit that, for the most part, I prefer rosé wine.  People would look at me with the barely concealed contempt of someone witnessing a diner at Le Benardin ordering Manischewitz. But this summer, both The New York Times AND The Financial Times have written in defense of the much-maligned petite rosé.

The FT's Andrew Jefford does a particularly nice job of explaining the allure of the pretty, pale cousin to France's reds and whites. He notes that these are wines to be savored not stored, that they are for drinkers, not collectors. 

There's nothing better than a crisp, cold rosé that refreshes on a hot summer afternoon and goes with all kinds of food. And while I appreciate Jefford's sharing a short list of his favorite domain, I'm surprised that he didn't include a single wine from Tavel, the only Appellation Controllee in all of France specializing in rose. 

Tavel was producing wine all the way back to when the Romans ruled Gaul and by the 17th century the wines of Tavel had an international following.  It gained its AOC classification in 1936, and the village built the cooperative cellar in 1939.  The cellar now includes 36 estates and individual cellars producing five million bottles -- 20% of which are exported -- roughly 45% of the region's production.  

With all the recent press attention, it's probably a good thing that an official Rosé Research Center has been set up to oversee the image of the wine, how it is presented and described.  They've suggested nine descriptors for the flavor, including apricot, mango, raspberry and red currant.  I think they need to add another word to the list -- yummy.

August & Antiques in L'Isle sur la Sorgue

Twice a year for the last 42 years, the antiques mecca known as L'Isle sur la Sorgue has hosted an international antique brocante that attracts hundreds of vendors and shoppers from throughout Europe.  The fair fills the city park and flows out along the crystal clear, swift-flowing canal that encircles the town. I was able to make the fair in April -- on a cold, windy day threatening rain -- but I'm going to miss the one going on this weekend.  If you are anywhere in the area around Avignon, Marseilles or Aix-en-Provence, head for L'Isle sur la Sorgue.

There are about 300 permanent antique dealers in L'Isle and that number more than doubles every weekend when the village holds a very well-known antiques flea market on Sunday. During summer months in the market, you'll hear nearly as much English, Italian and German being spoken as French. The selection of antiques is both expansive and expensive -- if you're used to shopping in lesser known brocantes or vides greniers as I am.  Still, you can still find some excellent items at fair prices if you're patient. Like any market in Provence, you want to arrive early for the best deals.  The vendors buy from each other before the customers arrive and being part of those first sales yields bargains.

An old seed advertisement

L'Isles sur la Sorgue Antique Fair last Spring

Last April, I bought a half-dozen hemp grain sacks dating from World War II in excellent condition at about 10 euros each ($13) to someday be used for upholstery but now being used to store linens.  I wish I'd bought the surplus 1950s Swiss Army blankets in steel gray with red crosses on them, selling for about 60 euros ($75). I don't have the blankets but I do have the memory of the amusing exchange I had with the vendor when I expressed the wish that the Swiss military made blankets in queen size. He laughed so hard he almost gave me one.  Almost. Things were busy in the military surplus tent, but I heard a number of vendors complain that sales were slow because of the economic crisis in Europe.  The economic outlook seems a bit better now, but my friend who sells in several other local flea markets says summer is never great for business.  Tourists come in droves, but few are interested in buying any larger items to take home. If you're the exception and you're willing to schlep your purchases home, you should be able to negotiate a very fair price this time of year.    

Never too early for a glass of wine

The Sunday flea market in L'Isle dates to 1966, when just 14 vendors gathered to sell old furniture, paintings and antiques on a Sunday afternoon. A little local publicity helped make the event a great success and it continued to grow gradually over the years, picking up steam in the 1980s with an increase in tourism, continuing publicity and a strong dollar. Over the last decade, L'Isle has seen a 128% growth in sales by the permanent antique dealers and those working the Sunday market.  

Sitting in traffic or searching for a place to park on Sunday morning, it's hard to remember that L'Isle sur la Sorgue was once a tiny village of fisherman.  It was an island surrounded by marshlands that were drained by the construction of the canals that now criss-cross town.  Tourist brochures refer to the town as the "Venice of the Comtat" and in the 12th century, water wheels were built along the canals to grind flour. Later, these were used for the silk and wool industries, which made the town extremely rich. (More on the silk trade in a later post.) A few of those 72 original waterwheels survive today. And fishing for trout is still very popular on the Sorgue -- although, perhaps, not as popular as fishing for bargains. 

Armchair adventurer

I confess. I'm addicted. If I buy one more Côte Sud, Elle Deco, Maison Francaise, Arts & Décoration, Ambiances, Campagnes Décoration, Mon Jardin or any other French decorating or art magazine, I'm going to need another house to store them in.  With magazines perched on coffee tables, bookshelves, even stacked under the bed, I've run out of space. Now, I've begun now to collect links to blogs on design, especially French design, with the same obsession the caused the overflow of magazines.  You can't hold a link the way you can hold the slick paper and satisfying weight of a magzine, but you don't have to dust them, either. This fascination with the decorative arts isn't new.  In fact, I've been interested in design, including French design, for as long as I can remember. 


I suspect, if I'd been better in math, I would have been an architect.  When other little girls were snuggling baby dolls or playing house, I was designing mine -- drawing floorplans with crayons and imagining castles with rainbow roofs. 

Salon, Le Clair de la Plume

As an adult, this love for interior design and decorative art translated into serial home buying. I found great fun in the first house I ever bought -- a plain wooden box -- that I gussied up with a pretty interior and flowery garden, sold at a nice profit to buy another one and begin decorating again.  Six houses and 18 years later, I'm still having fun and in the three years since I bought my home in France, I've just had a blast filling it. 


Furnishing a house is less about acquiring objects than it is about acquiring knowledge.  I've bought  little, but learned much.  I've learned to identify French furnishings by name, the way some people can identify birds -- the delicate Saint Hubert, the diminuitive bonneterie, the difference between a Bergere, Voltaire and Louis XIV.  I've discovered an ancient, Rube Goldberg-style factory in Provence where a brother and sister are the last to maintain a 19th century tradition of hand making brightly-hued coconut fiber rugs. I've met painters and potters and professors of decorative arts who were kind enough to explain the influence of nature in 17th and 18th Provencal architecture. Being an eager, appreciative student seems to bring out the teacher in everyone I meet. So the search for a single chair becomes an excuse to meet people who share my passion,  a chance to explore new corners of Provence, a key to learning more about the history and culture of France, an adventure.  I take my time; each piece has a story.  And I have many more stories than any single house could ever hold. 


Provence is a paradise for people passionate about decorative arts.  You don't need to be in Paris to have access to fantastic museums filled with beautiful objects and generous curators willing to share their knowledge. There's no better place for open-air markets, amazing out-of-the-way antiquaires and brocantes, the serendipitous greniers vides.   In the next few posts, I'm going to share some of what I've learned and hope that I'll hear from others who share my interest in art, decor and my deep affection for France.
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