Paris

Paris & Continuous Greening

/ Organikos / Leave a comment

Paris’ iconic zinc roofs can heat up to 194 degrees F on a hot summer day. JAN WOITAS / PICTURE-ALLIANCE VIA GETTY IMAGES

We have celebrated the many greening efforts made in Paris over the last decade, and today is a small but important addition to our knowledge of those commitments. Our thanks to Jeff Goodell in Yale e360:

A rendering of a rooftop terrace installed by the Parisian startup Roofscapes. ROOFSCAPES

Paris When It Sizzles: The City of Light Aims to Get Smart on Heat

With its zinc roofs and minimal tree cover, Paris was not built to handle the new era of extreme heat. Now, like other cities worldwide, it is looking at ways to adapt to rising temperatures — planting rooftop terraces, rethinking its pavements, and greening its boulevards.

The tree-lined Boulevard des Italiens is much cooler than nearby streets that lack trees.

The tree-lined Boulevard des Italiens is much cooler than nearby streets that lack trees. MBZT VIA WIKIPEDIA

There’s a long tradition in France of taking August off for holiday. Paris virtually shuts down as the temperature drifts around in the seventies, and people go to the beach or the mountains to cool off and relax. Think of it as an old‑fashioned adaptation to heat. People who stick around during August are often older or have jobs that require them to stay and keep the city functioning. Continue reading →

Who Dreamed This City into Being?

/ Organikos / Leave a comment
paris

In the 19th century, George-Eugene Haussmann completely redesigned and rebuilt the French capital. PHOTO: Matt Robinson

“Paris was a universe whole and entire unto herself, hollowed and fashioned by history; so she seemed in this age of Napoleon III with her towering buildings, her massive cathedrals, her grand boulevards and ancient winding medieval streets–as vast and indestructible as nature itself. All was embraced by her, by her volatile and enchanted populace thronging the galleries, the theaters, the cafes, giving birth over and over to genius and sanctity, philosophy and war, frivolity and the finest art; so it seemed that if all the world outside her were to sink into darkness, what was fine, what was beautiful, what was essential might there still come to its finest flower. Even the majestic trees that graced and sheltered her streets were attuned to her–and the waters of the Seine, contained and beautiful as they wound through her heart; so that the earth on that spot, so shaped by blood and consciousness, had ceased to be the earth and had become Paris.”
― Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire

Literature, history, art, everyday news, talk at a neighborhood cafe – the exquisite and the commonplace are rife with paeans to this city. But how did she come into being?

Continue reading →

Bonds In Theaters

/ Seth Inman / 3 Comments

Here on the southern coast of Nicaragua, I have tracked reviews of the latest Harry Potter movie without yet being able to see it for myself.  My parents and brother went to see it in Kerala today.  Their review was less about the movie itself than about the fact that being in a movie theater in India is a kind of spectacle in its own right, apart from whatever may be happening on screen. I’ll describe the Indian experience in more detail later; for now I think back in time.

In 2006 my family was living on a small island off the coast of Dubrovnik (that is the view from our home in the photo above). About 150 people lived on the island, mostly the families of fishermen, who only spoke Croatian and maybe a little Italian.  The old city of Dubrovnik had a small cinema that sometimes played movies in English.  I recall when the latest James Bond film, with a new actor whose performance everyone was eager to review, started playing in this theater–in English with Croatian subtitles. “Casino Royale,” the movie was called.

Continue reading →