Right behind Saint-Eustache is Les Halles, or more formally known as the Forum des Halles. You reach each by a different path so it isn't all that noticable that they are next to each other. Les Halles is a mostly underground shopping area and RER train station. It is big and because there are just tons of cafes and lots of stores, it is a popular hangout for young people. It's a fun place, but there really isn't much of interest to see. But an experience; and stop by FNAC and buy a book.
Centre Pompidou is modern of art, cinema and welcoming of
children. The centre's main attraction is the Musee National dÁrt Moderne.
Modern is from 1905 (1904 not a good year for modern art) until yesterday week.
You get your Fauvism, Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Expressionism and of course,
Ismism (just a jokeism). Centre Pompidou is dedicated to creative creations
whether it be literature, theater, film or music. The Centre Pompidou is
naturally creatively designed, thoughtfully administered and wonderfully
popular. If you are cool you Pompidou.
Église Saint-Eustache
Situated at the entrance to
Paris’s ancient markets (Les Halles) and the beginning of rue Montorgueil, the
Église de Saint-Eustache is considered a masterpiece of late Gothic architecture
clothed in Renaissance detail, and has been
attributed to Italian-born architect Domenico da Cortona [1]. The church is
relatively short in length at 105m, but its interior is 33.45m high to the
vaulting. At the main façade, the left tower has been completed in Renaissance
style, while the right tower remains a truncated stump. The front and rear
aspects provide a remarkable contrast between the comparatively sober classical
front and the exuberant rear, which integrates Gothic forms and organization
with Classical details. The L'écoute sculpture by Henri de Miller appears
outside the church, to the south. A Keith Haring sculpture made of silver stands
in a chapel of the church in memory of the epidemic of AIDS deaths during the
1980s.
Situated in Les Halles, an area of Paris renowned
for fresh produce of all kinds, the church became a parish in 1223, thanks to a
man named Alais who achieved this by taxing the baskets of fish sold nearby. To
thank such divine generosity Alais constructed a chapel dedicated to Sainte-Agnès,
a Roman martyr. The construction of the current church began in 1532, the work
not being finally completed until 1637. The name "Saint-Eustache" refers to
Saint Eustace, a Roman general who was burned along with his family for
converting to Christianity. Jeanne Baptiste d'Albert de Luynes was baptised
here.
According to tourist literature on-site, during
the French Revolution the church was (like most churches in Paris) desecrated
and looted, and used for a time as a barn. The church was restored after the
Revolution, however, and remains in use today. Several impressive paintings by
Rubens remain in the church today. Each summer, organ concerts commemorate the
premieres of Berlioz’s Te Deum and Liszt’s Christus here in 1886.
With 8000 pipes, the organ is reputed to be the
largest pipe organ in France, surpassing the organs of Saint Sulpice and Notre
Dame de Paris. The organ was originally constructed by Ducroquet and later
modified under the direction of Joseph Bonnet. The present instrument was
designed under the direction of Titular Organist Jean Guillou and dates from
1989 and was built by the Dutch firm of Van den Heuvel retaining a few ranks of
pipes from the former organ.
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Les Halles
Les Halles (pronounced [le al]) is an area of Paris,
located in the 1er arrondissement, just south of the fashionable rue Montorgueil.
It is named for the large central wholesale marketplace, which was demolished in
1971, to be replaced with an underground modern shopping precinct, the Forum des
Halles. It is notable in that the open air center area is below street level,
like a pit, and contains sculptures, fountains, and mosaics, as well as museums
including the Musée Grévin - Forum des Halles (a wax museum). Beneath this lies
the underground station Châtelet-Les-Halles, a central hub of Paris's express
commuter rail system, the RER.
Les Halles was the traditional central market of
Paris. In 1183, King Philippe II Auguste enlarged the marketplace in Paris and
built a shelter for the merchants, who came from all over to sell their wares.
In the 1850s, the massive glass and iron buildings (Victor Baltard Architect)
Les Halles became known for were constructed. Les Halles was known as the "belly
of Paris".
Unable to compete in the new market economy and in
need of massive repairs, the colorful ambience once associated with the bustling
area of merchant stalls disappeared in 1971, when Les Halles was dismantled; the
wholesale market was relocated to the suburb of Rungis.
The site was to become the point of convergence of
the RER, a network of new express underground lines which was completed in the
1960s. Three lines leading out of the city to the south, east and west were to
be extended and connected in a new underground station. For several years, the
site of the markets was an enormous open pit, nicknamed "le trou des Halles" (trou
= hole), regarded as an eyesore at the foot of the historic church of
Saint-Eustache.
Construction was completed in 1977 on Châtelet-Les-Halles,
Paris's new urban railway hub. The Forum des Halles, a partially underground
multiple storey commercial and shopping center, opened in 1979. The building was
criticized for its design and in recent years the city of Paris has undertaken
consultations regarding the remodeling of the area.
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Centre Georges Pompidou
Centre Georges Pompidou (constructed 1971–1977 and known as the Pompidou Centre
in English) is a complex in the Beaubourg area of the 4th arrondissement of
Paris, near Les Halles, rue Montorgueil and the Marais. It was designed in the
style of high-tech architecture.
It houses the Bibliothèque publique d'information, a vast public library, the
Musée National d'Art Moderne which is the largest museum for modern art in
Europe, and IRCAM, a centre for music and acoustic research. Because of its
location, the Centre is known locally as Beaubourg. It is named after Georges
Pompidou, the President of France from 1969 to 1974 who decided its creation,
and was officially opened on 31 January 1977 by then-French President Valéry
Giscard d'Estaing. The Centre Pompidou has had over 150 million visitors since
1977.
The Centre was designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano, the British
architect couple Richard Rogers and Su Rogers, Gianfranco Franchini, the British
structural engineer Edmund Happold (who would later found Buro Happold), and
Irish structural engineer Peter Rice. The project was awarded to this team in an
architectural design competition, whose results were announced in 1971.
Reporting on Rogers' winning the Pritzker Prize in 2007, The New York Times
noted that the design of the Centre "turned the architecture world upside down"
and that "Mr. Rogers earned a reputation as a high-tech iconoclast with the
completion of the 1977 Pompidou Centre, with its exposed skeleton of brightly
colored tubes for mechanical systems. The Pritzker jury said the Pompidou
“revolutionized museums, transforming what had once been elite monuments into
popular places of social and cultural exchange, woven into the heart of the
city.
Initially, all of the functional structural elements of the building were
color-coded: green pipes are plumbing, blue ducts are for climate control,
electrical wires are encased in yellow, and circulation elements and devices for
safety (e.g., fire extinguishers) are red. However, recent visits suggests that
this color coding has been partially removed, and many of the elements are
simply painted white.
The Centre was built by GTM and completed in 1977. The building cost 993 million
1972 French francs. Renovation work conducted from October 1996 to January 2000
was completed on a budget of 576 million 1999 francs.
The nearby Stravinsky Fountain (also called the Fontaine des automates), on
Place Stravinsky, features sixteen whimsical moving and water-spraying
sculptures by Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint-Phalle, which represent themes and
works by composer Igor Stravinsky. The black-painted mechanical sculptures are
by Tinguely, the colored works by Niki de Saint-Phalle. The fountain opened in
1983.
The Place Georges Pompidou in front of the museum is noted for the presence of
street performers, such as mimes and jugglers. In the spring, miniature
carnivals are installed temporarily into the place in front with a wide variety
of attractions: bands, caricature and sketch artists, tables set up for evening
dining, and even skateboarding competitions.
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