Le Groupe Moniteur is a French company which helps
establish links between the construction and development industries and the communities in which they work. It is also the owner of the
Librairie Le Moniteur - a highly specialized bookstore located a stone’s throw away from the Jardin du Luxembourg and the Théâtre du Odeon.
Filled with books on architecture, urban planning,
landscaping and interior design, the Librairie Le Moniteur
is one the largest specialized bookstores in Paris
(and certainly the largest bookstore specializing in
books on the topic that I’ve seen)...
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A few weeks ago, l'EPAD, the government body responsible for developing Paris’ La Défense district, announced the completion of an international tender for the construction of a new high-rise tower (La Tour Signal). The project went
to Ateliers Jean Nouvel.
The revered French architect (who is the winner of this year’s Pritzker Prize) beat out several well-known colleagues, including Jacques Ferrier Architectures,
Foster+Partners, Studio Libeskind, and Wilmotte et Associés...
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You may remember the tragic accident at the Paris
Roissy Charles-de-Gaulle Airport’s Terminal 2E four years ago.
A large part of its glass roof collapsed killing
four people and injuring several others.
Well, it only took four years and about 150M€ for engineers to
fix the damn roof, but they finally did it. A couple of weeks ago first
scheduled flights started using the terminal...
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One grey New Year’s Day in Paris my sister and I decided to go for a walk. Our senses happily dulled from the night before, we wandered through Montparnasse; a high wall herded us along the sidewalk.
Suddenly, it broke into large gates: a cemetery lay beyond. We hesitated, but our curiosity was piqued, so we went in...
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They are a familiar sight on the banks of the Seine - those faintly weary people manning the dark-green wooden stalls filled with used and new books, postcards, posters, paintings, compact disks, LP’s other pre-digital-era media curiosities.
They are Paris Bouquinistes - a tribe that has existed (and flourished) since as far back as the mid-16th century, although it was only from the late the 1790s, when they were first officially recognized, that
les bouquinistes gradually came to occupy most embankments on and around the
Île de la Cité - despite organized resistance from the more “orderly” bookstores which, as you may know, are aplenty in Paris...
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