La Villa Rose

La Villa Rose

Opera House: Palace of Versailles

       Paris is a nautilus.  Paris is a revolving wheel: virtuous and full of vice with its spiraling city plan spinning out behind both good and evil.  I was yet again sitting in an opera house when I realized the theme to my thoughts of the new city I was experiencing.  The warmth of the golden lights and the smell of old oak was intoxicating as we sat in the opera house of the Palace of Versailles.  Looking at the giant cavern that was hugging us with its balcony seating stretching its arms out and around with ornate carvings, lights, and tapestries, the tour guides voice reached us easily as she explained the dynamics of the room.  The space was designed so the curving wood provides perfect acoustics for performers, allowing the sound to reverberate throughout the opera house, reaching the audience with pronounced clarity.  I realized this is much like the cultural theme and physical layout of Paris: with echoes of history reverberating through rippling layers, keeping the initial sound alive while it is newly interpreted by audiences of each generation.  It is this ability to keep history in sight while expanding into the future that gives Paris virtue and pushes it beyond definitions of good and evil, despite having the vices of most metropolises.

         The vices of a metropolis, the city being a nest of iniquity and the remover of man from nature, are visible in Paris.  Evidence of a spendthrift monarchy and mammonistic upper class litters the city and its surrounding area in the forms of extravagant palaces, old passageway malls, and grand monuments.  Social iniquity in France has progressed significantly in the direction of equilibrium since the revolution against the monarchy and strict class structures and has done so in rippling form.  The initial French Revolution started the waves of revolts against social inequality that persist in France today.  Known by critics as the “French whine,” these protests are echoes of history.  New generations are looking back to actions of predecessors and carrying on the energy of the initial movement, expanding the initial ring.  Modern class disparity can still be seen in any metro station.  It is illustrated by the men and women who camp out on and under the benches, resting their heads on their bag of belongings, but protests are still being held on the streets above.

Daniel Buren's Columns

            The idea of class equality is visible in the column installation located in the courtyard of the Palais Royal, created by Daniel Buren.  The installation consists of 260 marble pillars, evenly spaced throughout the courtyard.  The pillars are of different heights and have vertical black and white stripes mimicking the common print of French draperies and awnings.  The piece juxtaposes the symbolic strength and royalty of columns with the historic and culturally common striped print of the French middle class.  The royal, classical symbol of the column is given to the citizen in a commonly wrapped, contemporary package.  With its unveiling 25 years ago, there was much controversy over the placement of the installation (Reuters).  The columns are a modernist statement placed in one of the most historically and architecturally significant nooks of Paris: the seventeenth century courtyard of the Palais Royal.  The once exclusive courtyard in the shadow of the lavishly decorated palace is now frequented by running children and visitors of all classes and marked by a simple field of columns.  It is truly a visual representation of the shift in the

Skyline of Montparnasse Cemetery

class construction of Paris.

            The removal from nature that the structure of a metropolis is capable of was strikingly apparent as I wandered through the Montparnasse cemetery.  Man was brought back to his most natural state, of flesh and bone buried in dirt, but was jailed in a city of stone.  As I sat on a bench, the skyline of the gravestones and monuments blended in eerily well with the skyline of the city behind it.  The cemetery was a city within a city.  It seemed inappropriate that these organic bodies were lying under this field of geometric and carefully shaped blocks of stone and cement, with the only other organic matter being well-tended circles of ornamental sod or shrubs every few blocks and wilted potted flowers scattered next to the sites.  I then realized a city is much the same way: with organic bodies living in geometric, manmade spaces, with a limited connection to transplanted, manicured nature.

Tree-lined Streets of Paris

            Compared to other metropolises, Paris is considerably green containing over 400 public parks and gardens.  Appreciation for green public spaces was initiated by Napoleon III during his redesign of Paris in the nineteenth century.  Carrying this ideal throughout history, Parisians have denied developmental pressures to turn parks and forests into parking spaces and freeways (Travel Signposts).  As many futurists projected, the social energy of the city, planted deep in Parisian history, overcame the vice of the city, enhancing its virtue.

The high energy in Paris that propagates art and pleasure helps define the virtue of the metropolis.  From the many breathtaking art museums, to the thought provoking architecture and the thoughtful cityscape, art is everywhere in the city.  Denizens parade art through the streets and metros in the latest fashions, a metro station is decorated in giant hand blown glass beads and strung on aluminum caging, and installations seem to unexpectedly pop up around every corner.

Oculi of the Louvre

            With the new wave of thought pioneered by Baudelaire and the French Impressionists around 1850, the definition of the city was pushed beyond bounds of good and evil, largely due to the emphasis on the recognition of history.  This constant check with history was remarkably clear in Paris.  Our guide informed us that Napoleon III aspired to make the city of Paris into a display of high art and fine architecture as part of his mission to bring Paris to the lead of rising modern cities.  He wanted to make Paris into a livable museum.  History would be accessible and visible to all citizens.

Growing Path

In Napoleon’s city planning collaboration with Hausmann, long streets cut through the city, ending in a recognizable monument or fountain, a marker identifying each quartier of Paris.  Standing on a corner, one has an unobstructed line of sight down the street, dissecting the densely packed structures, and landing on reminders of history.  When seen from above, these streets reach out from their centers like wheel spokes.  Just as spokes strengthen a wheel, ensuring revolution after revolution, the lines of sight towards history strengthen the identity and self-consciousness of Parisians, ensuring revolution after revolution, collective advancement, and collective growth.

Crepe City

            Once I began realizing the circular trend of Paris, I saw it everywhere.  I became fixated.  The wood used as tiling in a walkway with exposed growth rings was a library of the life of the tree.  One could count the years, reflecting back upon its history, much like the visible growth rings of Paris.  As each new ring adds another ripple, the others embrace it.  The new uses the old as an example, yet remains its own ring.  Like the petals of a rose, each layer builds off of those before it: la vie en rose—la villa rose.  A city is a growing, developing entity.  The city of Paris is spiraling outwards, just as its nautilus city plan suggests.  As it spirals outwards, members are always able to look directly back towards its center and view its history, no matter where it is along its new ring of growth.  Like a ballet dancer must spot, choose a point to look to while spinning so he does not dizzy, Paris spots its history so as to not spin out of control while progressing.

The Beret

            So many Parisian staples exhibit this round form or pattern of expansion.  Vendors pour the famous crêpe batter, spreading it outwards on the circular skillet.  The beret sits atop heads of locals and on shelves of souvenir shops.  The ends of wine bottles poke out of wooden lattice racks, taking the drinker back in history to a certain favored year.  In the hallways of the galeries and passageway malls, such as the Galerie Colbert are domed meeting centers tiled with patterns resembling suns or spokes.

            It is this visualization that explains Paris’ inability to be a temporal locus, but exist as a temporal quality.  Paris can never be defined as existing at a singular point in time; it is always at all times at once.  With its respect of the past and view of the future, Paris is so transient that I consider it tangential to time.  It has a past and it has a future, but in a spiraling form, any distinction apart from the origin and the temporary end are indistinguishable.  Paris’ continual spirals recognize vice with virtue, as it spins beyond definition of good and evil.

Saint Petersburg: A Naked City Under the Fur

            I could finally start sorting my perception of St. Petersburg into words at the opera performance of Prince Igor.  As the red curtain withdrew, a second curtain, a transparent screen painted with the young, indistinct and expressionless face of Prince Igor, remained between the audience and the performers.  Cast light allowed the audience an almost unhampered view of the actors, making one forget the divider.  This screen was raised after the first act but used again during transitions.  The actors, their lines, and the meat of the play was still exposed to the audience-outsiders, despite there being a giant face façade between them and the native thespians.  Audience members were even given playbooks in English to guide them through the Russian opera.  All aspects of the opera were accessible to the viewer, yet mysteriously guarded by this screen.  I realized this is exactly how I felt St. Petersburg is presented to visitors.  St. Petersburg is a city beyond good and evil.  The evil of the city is laughed at, while the good and light is scoffed at and dirtied with grim humor.

            The city hands out playbills left and right: walking down the street one encounters tourist souvenir shops on both sides of the street on most blocks.  Even the local markets have permanent souvenir stands surrounding them offering nesting dolls, painted eggs, scarves, and tin cans of “St. Petersburg Air”.  Hosting millions of tourists a year, St. Petersburg is rich with informative tours and accessible history.  As an observer, one is not lost in St. Petersburg, but carefully guided through each act, given biographies of the actors, and notified of the credited set-builders.  The tours can also cast light through the screen.

There are no rules on these roads. Just kidding...not really.

            Our first guide, Natalia, met us at the airport and gave a short introduction to St. Petersburg on the bus ride to the hotel.  Natalia was our first encounter with Russian humor and conduct.  She gave us basic advice for survival during our week stay in St. Petersburg.  Much of the advice consisted of her making a statement, slightly retracting it while claiming to be “just kidding,” and then reaffirming her original statement with a very somber, “but really.”  Her stories and warnings were grim.  She advised us against using water from the tap and drinking bootleg life-water.  We were also warned of pickpockets, kidnappers, dark streets, and the police.  She was being humorous, and very serious.  Natalia exposed us to the workings, telling us everything we would need to know to survive the opera of St. Petersburg, but then put up a screen, making sure we were still in the audience and not taking part in the show.

Endless Time in Endless Hallways

            Russian culture views time as an endless resource at the disposal of the user.  The culture treats actions as processes, not results.  The common Russian view is that the environment controls the person; the person does not control the environment.  A person attends an opera to see the song and dance, to experience an entire story, not find out if Prince Igor gets the girl.  After all, the result is already written in the playbook.  Similarly, the result is already obviously written in Russian humor: death.  The actors in the city of St. Petersburg carry on their opera in endless acts, each as critical as the one before, taking intermissions when needed.

            A sign declaring a “20 minute break” hanging on the door of a café or shop is common in St. Petersburg.  The beginning and end of the break are undeclared and the break will most likely not be twenty minutes.  This is common Russian knowledge, yet again places a curtain in front of outsiders.  It informs the solicitor that the breaker will return shortly, but creates a chasm by leaving “shortly” undefined.  Time, like much of Russian communication, is largely left open to interpretation.  Russian language is a high content form of communication, largely relying on context, signs, and metaphors.  Much is implied and left to be deciphered by the interpreter.  The responsibility to understand is that of the receiver.  It is the observer’s responsibility to peer through the curtain and interpret the actors’ portrayals.  The communication itself is a screen.

Scaffolding Facades

         There also exist physical screens in the city of St. Petersburg.  Large scaffolding systems surround a shocking number of buildings, seeming to line the streets with metal ladders and wooden planks.  It was explained that this is because of the cultural outlook on time, being that it is an endless resource, that it is the process to value, not the result.  Projects are worked on over a casual timeline, with deadlines never seeming to approach or exist.  Though the scaffolding may seem to hinder the aesthetic view of the city by hiding the facades of the buildings, it in fact reveals the essential cultural view of the Russian concept of time.  The screen of scaffolding is telling of the culture that thrives within the buildings.

Camp Out

            The baroque style of many of the buildings in St. Petersburg also creates a screened effect.  The St. Petersburg Cathedral of the Resurrection embodies this clownish exaggeration of embellishment.  On the tour, our guide introduced the church as being gaudy and over the top.  She went so far as to say that Russians are embarrassed of the cathedral.  She then quickly defended the cathedral, saying that they also love it, because it is so Russian.  “We hate it.  I’m just kidding, but really.”

The intricate ornaments, statues, and gold detail give one the sense of being in a city of gingerbread houses.  Many of the most elaborate buildings are gifts.  One cannot help but wonder about the intentions behind the gift: whether it was the act of giving, of the giver being so well-established to be able to give such an impressive structure, or if it was the giver truly wanting the recipient to be comfortable in a grand, highly decorated and visibly expensive palace.

"Prospek.."

            On a course through the city of St. Petersburg, I found myself being struck by the view from each street corner.  The buildings are placed along the wide streets in a perspective style, allowing the observer a clean view of the stretch.  Our guide informed us that Russians often forgo the endings of words, calling the style “prospekt.”  The layout of the street this way exposes the city to those within, making navigating the web much more manageable.  The wide streets and expansive views also mask the potential claustrophobia of the tightly packed buildings of relatively small living and working spaces.

            St. Petersburg is a naked city.  It exposes itself whole-heartedly, leaving no secrets.  Enigmatically, after exposing itself, the city seems to blanket itself in a screen of fur, much like the denizens marching down the streets, proceeding with a darkly secretive and seductive character.  As our tour bus passed the KGB headquarters our tour guide instructed us to look over, smile, and wave: they were watching us.  All of the secrets are known and all are joked about in a loud hush.  Nothing is taken at face value.  Every joke is serious and every fact should be laughed at.

Intricacies

Berlin 04.10.2010

     Walking through the park just after dusk with a friend last night I made an observation that I have been waiting for, one that I have made many times before but had not quite put words to or made quite as concrete as last night:  the uncanny similarity of a person to a city.  We were talking about mental diseases.  Our past experiences have left us astonished at the drastically different dimensions one person can exhibit, and more remarkably, the drastically different thought processes a single person can follow.  Walking through the maze-like park with spinning seats and fences covered in ivy and spray painted tags, it was staggeringly obvious how similar a person is to a metropolis.
  
    Just as cities are built up over time, with the new buildings meeting the old, old buildings being renovated, sometimes demolished, or replicated, a person is constantly adding new bits: folders of knowledge, memories, character, experiences, to his self.  He is a building.  He is always under construction, always being built.  Just as parts of a city might be demolished, a person can be torn apart, and as the city is rebuilt with memory of the painful past, a person rebuilds his self after such an event.

     A city's citizens act as a sort of memory.  They bounce histories off of one another, circulating information, mulling it over, analyzing, and producing new ideas, buzzing just like a consciousness.  The streets and transportation systems act as both veins and neurons, transporting people and things in order to fuel new thought and solidify earlier thoughts in files of history.

    A city's subcultures are like a person's varying tastes.  Cultures and tastes may overlap one another, conflict, and or coalesce with one another.  In the stage of the metropolis, no matter how they interact, the subcultures in collection define the character of the city.

   We all have our intricacies.  Intricacies in our histories, tastes, dispositions, thought processes, streets, sidewalks, and homes.

New York City 20.07.2010

Touching Down and Setting Off

     After a visit to New York City and Providence, I returned to my home in Illinois for a few days.  I unpacked and packed getting ready to set out for a four month stay in Berlin.  Packing has always been an odd process for me.  It's so physically a representation of transition.  One has to analytically look at what he has gathered for himself, look at his possessions, and decide what he will need for his next passage, what he can do without for the time being, and what he can do without forever more.  It can send a person reeling into anxiety.  It can also catalyze a purge, a cathartic cleanse.  It is an opportunity for one to analyze himself, prompted by his possessions.  What have I gathered for myself and why? What must I bring with me on my next endeavors and why? Where am I going, do I care for this anymore, do I need this, did I need this? It can allow a person to see and make resolutions to improve his lifestyle.  In short, I feel confident with my pack-age for this trip.  I have myself assembled into two bags.  With myself assembled, I am ready to mingle and mesh.  I am ready to hold my foundation while allowing those I meet to help me sketch blueprints for my renovations.  I am ready to observe and participate, to listen and share, to converse, to define.